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THE  CHRI8T  OF  THE  GOSPELS  AND  THE 
CHRIST  OF  MODERN  CRITICISM: 


LEOTUEES 


ON 


M.  KENAN'S    VIE  DE  JESUS." 

BY 

/ 
JOHN  TULLOCH,  D.  D., 

PfilNCIPAI.    OF   THE   COLLEGE   OF   ST.    MARY,    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF 

ST.  .ANDREW;   AUTHOR   OF    "THEISM,"    "LEADERS 

OF   THE   REF0R3IATI0N,"    ETC. 

WITH 

AN   INTRODUCTION, 

BY 

REV.  I.  W.  WILEY,  D.  D.        ^ 


CINCINNATI: 
PUBLISHED    BY    POE    &    HITCHCOCK. 


R.    P.    THOMPSON,    PRINTER. 
1865. 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 


Dr.  Tulloch,  the  author  of  the  little  work 

we  here  present  to  American  ^]-  •     '^^  n 

ready  widely  known  in  the  Christi-      ■     ••;■'.  c^s 

the  author  of  "  Theism,"  "  Tnjd  Leadet     _  ihe 

Reformation,"  and  other  valuable  works.     In 

learning,  in  piety,  and  in  the  skillful  handling 

of  the  pen,  he  is  every  way  qualified  to  review 

and  refute  the  captivating  book  of  M.  Renan, 

and  in  doing  so,  to  produce  a  work  still  more 

captivating  in  its  clear,  fluent,  eloquent  style, 

than  even  the  florid  rhetoric  of  Renan  himself. 

In  this  respect  he  meets  the  skeptic  on  his  own 

ground,   and   is   his   master   in   eloquence   and 

rhetoric.     "  The  Christ  of  the  Gospels,  and  the 

Christ  of  Modern   Criticism,"  is  an  admirable 

though  brief  exposition  at  once  of  the  book  of 

3 


4  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

M.  Renan,  and  of  the  historical  and  philosoph- 
ical as  well  as  Christian  principles  which  nega- 
tive its  conclusions. 

"Principal  Tulloch's  Lectures,"  says  the  re- 
viewer of  this  little  work  in  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine for  October,  1864,  "have  already  fulfilled 
the  primary  and  immediate  purpose  for  which 
they  were  in  no  respect  after  date,  and,  having 
done  so,  come  as  fitly  as  modestly  to  the  public, 
not  so  much  in  refutation  of  the  brilliant  French- 
man's idyl,  as  in  calm  remonstrance  and  protest 
against  the  principles  at  once  of  historical  in- 
quiry and  moral  criticism,  which  have  produced 
this  last  and  newest  exposition  of  the  ideas  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Rehgious  declamation 
or  pious  horror  would  be  out  of  place  from  a 
chair  in  which  theology  has  to  be  treated  as  a 
science,  and  where  to  prove  all  things  is  as 
necessary  as  to  hold  fast  that  which  is  true. 
Nor  is  it,  fortunately,  the  custom  nowadays  to 
impute  motives,  or  set  down,  as  in  more  primi- 
tive times,  a  religious  speculatist  as  naturally 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  5 

an  impious  man.     Principal  Tulloch  himself  is 
one  of  the  chief  leaders  of  religious  thought  in 
Scotland,  and  is  neither  afraid  of  speculation, 
nor  disposed  to  confine  it  within  artificial  limits. 
On  the  contrary,  he  considers  it  a  necessary 
instrument  in  the  Church,  destined  to  weed  and 
winnow  the  superfluous  matter  which  attaches 
itself  to  every  real  substance  of  truth;  and  it 
is,  accordingly,  without  any  undue  heat  or  prej- 
udice that  he  looks  at  M.  Renan,  whose  real 
qualities  of  scholarship  he  acknowledges  with- 
out  hesitation,   and  against  whose  honesty  he 
makes   no   suggestion.      The   faults   he   alleges 
against  the  book  are  of  a  more  radical  quality. 
To  call  it  blasphemous  would  have  been  easy. 
The    critic,    in    the    present    case,    goes    much 
further,  and  calls  it  unphilosophical.     He  finds 
fault  with  its  principles,  not  only  in  a  religious 
but  in  an  intellectual  point  of  view.     He  de- 
scribes it  as  at  once  theoretical  and  dogmatic, 
rejecting    the    Catholic    belief   with    the    bland 
elevation  of  superior  intelligence,  yet  claiming 


6  EDITORIAL  introduction: 

from  its  readers  a  faith  in  its  own  assumption, 
which  no  Pope  has  yet  been  abb  to  extort  from 
the  unwilhng  world." 

M.  Kenan's  work  is  not  strong,  but  captiva- 
ting ;  not  logical,  but  rhetorical ;  not  a  book  of 
facts,  but  a  book   of  pictures.      He  states  no 
propositions  which   he   attempts   to  prove,  but 
assumes  certain  facts  on  which  he  beautifully 
expatiates.     He  attempts  to  prove  nothing,  not 
even  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  books, 
which  are  nothing  more  than  the  assumptions 
of  a  bald  materialism,  the  exclusion  of  all  su- 
pernatural elements  from  the  world's  history; 
and  on  this  basis  of  naturalism  he  attempts  to 
explain    the   wonderful    life    and    character    of 
Christ.     In  this  life  and  character,  according  to 
M.  Renan,  there  was  nothing  miraculous,  noth- 
ing superhuman.     Like  every  other  human  life 
it  developed  itself  in  accordance  with  the  nat- 
ural endowments   of  his   individual   nature,   as 
those  endowments  were  acted  upon  and  evolved 
by   the   circumstances    which   surrounded    him. 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  7 

In  developing  the  life  of  Christ  there  was  sim- 
ply a  happy  meeting  of  a  peculiarly  gentle, 
sagacious,  loving,  and  lovable  human  nature  in 
the  person  of  Jesus,  with  such  influences  aris- 
ing from  climate,  scenery,  certain  popular  ideas, 
etc.,  as  could  not  result  otherwise  than  in  a 
remarkable  character.  The  life  of  Jesus  is  but 
the  resultant  aggregate  of  these  internal  and 
external  forces. 

The  only  reasons  M.  Renan  has  to  give  for 
this  entire  exclusion  of  every  thing  supernatural 
or  miraculous  from  the  life  of  Christ,  are,  first, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  believe  in  the  miracu- 
lous; that  the  world  naturally  and  historically 
is  obviously  governed  simply  and  solely  by 
natural,  uniform,  and  all-pervading  laws,  and 
that  the  miraculous  does  not  come  within  the 
sphere  of  our  human  experience,  and,  therefore, 
not  within  the  sphere  of  our  belief.  Secondly, 
that  there  is  no  need  of  invoking  the  aid  of  the 
supernatural  in  explaining  the  life  of  Christ,  as 
all  its  phenomena,  remarkable  as  he  acknowl- 


8  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

edges  them  to  be,  can  be  adequately  accounted 
for  on  purely  natural  and  human  principles. 

These  views  give  a  double  task  to  M.  Renan. 
First,  to  remove  out  of  the  life  of  Christ  as 
recorded  by  the  evangelists  every  miraculous 
feature,  for  which  purpose  he  must  either  sim- 
ply deny  the  historical  fact,  or  accepting  the 
fact,  must  attempt  its  explanation  on  natural 
principles.  He  uses  both  these  methods;  the 
miraculous  birth,  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  and 
other  equally  vital  facts  in  the  Gospel,  he 
simply  sets  aside  as  myths  that  have  grown 
up  in  later  years  out  of  the  profound  veneration 
of  the  disciples  for  their  beloved  Master.  The 
turning  of  water  into  wine,  the  feeding  of  the 
five  thousand,  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  and  many 
other  miracles,  he  attempts  to  explain  on  nat- 
ural principles,  such  as  exaggeration,  illusion, 
a  willingness  in  some  cases  on  the  part  of  the 
disciples  to  be  deceived,  and  even  to  aid  in  a 
deception;  and  he  even  goes  so  far  in  some 
cases  as  to  implicate  in  some  degree  the  blessed 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  9 

Lord  himself  in  these  deceptions,  who,  however, 
he  claims  was  involuntarily  and  unapprovingly- 
pressed  into  them  by  the  constant  demand  of 
his  followers  for  marvels.  Generally  the  fault 
is  charged  upon  the  over-loving  disciples,  who 
were  excessively  in  earnest  to  gather  around 
their  Master  the  fame  of  a  wonder-worker. 
One  of  the  best  examples  of  these  efforts  of 
M.  Renan  to  explain  the  mu'acles  of  Christ  is 
the  one  selected  by  our  author;  namely,  the 
resurrection  of  Lazarus,  found  in  the  body  of 
the  work,  the  reading  of  which  will  both  serve 
to  illustrate  Kenan's  method  and  to  refute  it. 
This  part  of  M.  Kenan's  book  is  a  failure; 
it  is  not  even  dangerous;  its  attempted  expla- 
nations are  so  impossible  in  some  instances,  so 
absurd,  ridiculous,  and  contradictory  in  others, 
that  they  refute  themselves.  We  almost  agree 
with  a  French  critic  in  rejoicing  that  M.  Renan 
has  made  this  attempt.  He  is  a  scholar  of 
acknowledged  eminence,  learned  in  all  the  in- 
tricacies of  Asiatic  literature,  a  savant  in  nat- 


10  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

ural  science,  an  Oriental  traveler,  making  the 
tour  of  the  Holy  Land  purposely  to  secure  the 
data  necessary  for  liis  work;  and  with  these 
eminent  qualifications  he  professes  to  enter 
with  a  perfectly  candid  and  unbiased  mind  upon 
the  consideration  of  those  singular  phenomena 
which  attended  the  origin  of  Christianity.  He 
denies  their  miraculous  character;  he  attempts 
to  explain  them  on  mere  natural  principles;  he 
fails— fails  even  to  satisfy  his  own  mind,  fails 
to  produce  a  scheme  of  interpretation  that  the 
skeptics  of  France  and  Germany  will  accept. 
The  savant  of  the  nineteenth  century  furnishes 
no  more  satisfactory  solution  of  the  marvelous 
phenomena  of  the  hfe  of  Christ  than  did  the 
cotemporaneous  Pharisees  who  attributed  them 
to  Beelzebub,  or  than  Celsus,  Porphyry,  or 
Julian,  of  the  primitive  centuries,  who  attributed 
them  to  magic. 

Having  thus,  as  he  supposes,  eliminated  the 
miraculous  from  the  life  of  Christ,  the  next 
task  of  M.  Renan  is  to  explain  his  history  and 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  11 

character  as  he  supposes  them  to  have  been 
naturally  developed  by  the  influences  which  sur- 
rounded him.  For  this  purpose  he  does  not 
depreciate  the  remarkable  human  life  of  Christ. 
He  has  evidently  been  deeply  impressed  by  the 
wonderful  character  he  has  set  himself  to  por- 
tray. He  constantly  reminds  us  of  the  sublime 
contrast  which  Rousseau  has  drawn  between  the 
character  of  Jesus  and  that  of  Socrates.  In 
this  part  of  his  work  the  philosopher  becomes 
an  enthusiast.  The  following  thoughts  of  an 
English  reviewer  of  M.  Kenan's  work  are  ad- 
mirably descriptive  of  this  feature  of  his  book: 
"To  account  for  the  influence  exercised  by  a 
man  of  humble  station  and  uncultivated  powers, 
not  only  over  his  own  generation  but  over  cen- 
turies of  distant  time  and  worlds  of  alien  peo- 
ple, does  indeed  require  that  every  thing  that 
is  most  noble  and  perfect  in  mind  and  spirit 
should  at  least  be  allowed  to  the  individual  who 
has  occupied  so  singular  a  place  in  the  world. 
M.  Renan   accordingly  depicts  the  Author  of 


12  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

our  religion  in  the  warmest  and  brightest  colors. 
So  far  from  attempting  to  lessen  the  beauty  of 
his  character,  he  sets  it  forth,  as  we  have  said, 
with  graceful  enthusiasm,  elaborating  many  a 
charming  vignette  by  the  way  of  that  fair  East- 
ern landscape,  which  he  concludes  to  have  im- 
parted so  much  of  its  reflective  calm  and  pastoral 
beauty  to  the  soul  of  the  young  Nazarene.  He 
describes  to  us,  in  very  full  detail,  what  Jesus 
knew  and  did  not  know,  and  the  processes  of 
thought  and  growth  of  ideas  in  his  mind.  He 
touches  lightly,  with  a  tender  regret,  on  those 
unfortunate  moments  in  which,  beguiled  by  the 
wiles  of  his  friends  and  the  necessities  of  the 
time,  this  wonderful  reformer  permitted  himself 
to  be  seduced  into  thaumaturgical  performances 
and  pretenses  of  miracle.  By  these  means — 
by  the  beauty  of  Christ's  character,  and  even, 
for  M.  Renan  is  bold,  of  his  person — ^by  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  followers,  and  the  ingenuity 
of  his  disciples,  and  the  mingled  wants  and 
credulity  of  the   age — the  new  biographer   of 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  13 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  does  his  best  to  account  for 
Christianity." 

So  far  from  detracting  from  the  glory  of  the 
figure  which  it  is  his  ambition  to  portray,  his 
evident  desire  and  intention  is  to  add  to  it,  and 
record  more  distinctly  its  wonderful  elevation 
and  majesty.  Yet  in  all  this  eloquence  of  de- 
scription he  never  allows  the  character  of  Christ 
to  rise  above  the  human.  Jesus  is  for  him  only 
the  son  of  Mary,  never  the  Son  of  God ;  a  man 
of  wonderful  genius  and  high  originality,  but 
never  actually  a  divine  person.  Indeed,  M. 
Renan  seems  to  proceed  as  if  no  one  ever  for 
a  moment  had  thought  of  any  other  elements 
in  the  character  of  Christ  than  those  of  our 
common  humanity,  though  possessed  by  him  in 
an  extraordinary  degree,  and  developed  by  pe- 
culiar circumstances  into  a  unique  character  of 
great  loveliiiess  and  power.  This  sublime  char- 
acter, too,  as  drawn  by  himself,  is  a  historical, 
an  actual  person;  this  life  of  wonderful  beauty 
is  not  a  myth,  not  a  legend.     M.  Renan  had 


14  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

heart  and  power  to  perceive  that  the  human 
imagination  is  incapable  of  so  magriificent  an 
invention;  least  of  all  would  he  have  supposed 
for  a  moment  that  the  illiterate  disciples  could 
have  conceived  and  depicted  so  wonderful  a 
character. 

It  becomes  the  task,  then,  of  M.  Eenan  to 
explain  this  sublime  life,  so  far  transcending  all 
other  human  lives,  and  so  powerfully  affecting 
not  only  the  age  and  country  in  which  he  lived, 
but  all  subsequent  ages,  and  even  these  remote 
ends  of  the  world.  This  he  attempts  to  do  by 
reference  to  the  ordinary  influence  of  surround- 
ing circumstances  in  the  development  of  char- 
acter. On  this  law  of  influence  he  lays  great 
stress;  with  him  every  human  character  is  but 
the  aggregate  result  of  certain  natural  endow- 
ments as  acted  upon  by  the  outer  influences 
into  the  midst  of  which  the  living  individual  is 
thrown.  Of  course  all  this  is  materialistic, 
even  mechanical;  yet  chiefly  by  the  action  of 
this  law  he  attempts  to  explain  the  character 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  15 

of  our  Lord.  He  concedes  to  him,  first  of  all, 
a  moral  nature  most  happily  constituted — gen- 
tle, loving,  sensitive,  conscientious,  impressible ; 
his  mind  is  one  of  remarkable  originality  and 
acuteness;  he  is  intelligent,  but  not  educated; 
has  great  intuitional  power,  and  is  profoundly 
contemplative;  he  is  in  active  sympathy  with 
the  current  ideas  of  his  age  and  country,  and 
is  strongly  influenced  especially  by  the  mes- 
sianic expectations  of  his  nation.  This  nature 
develops  itself  amid  the  grand  scenery  of 
Galilee;  the  mountains,  the  valleys,  the  lakes, 
the  magnificent  landscapes,  the  calm,  quiet  pas- 
toral life  around  him,  the  ideas  floating  about 
as  the  common  food  of  thought,  all  act  upon 
his  gentle  and  impressible  nature,  and  the  re- 
sult is  the  wonderful  man  Christ  Jesus.  If  we 
should  ask  M.  Renan,  "What  thinkest  thou  of 
Christ?"  he  would  give  us  the  bald,  mechanical 
reply,  He  is  the  sum  total  of  certain  elements 
of  a  very  fine  nature  born  of  Mary,  and  the 
influence  of  the  climate,  scenery,  modes  of  life 


16  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

and  thoTiglit  existing  eighteen  centuries  ago  in 
Galilee ! 

All,  then,  that  M.  Renan  has  to  offer  us  in 
explanation  of  the  wonderful  life  of  Christ  which 
he  himself  so  eloquently  depicts,  is  "  that  Christ 
was  produced  by  Judaism,  the  most  austere  and 
narrow  of  all  reUgious  systems,  and  by  the 
lovely  pastoral  landscapes  and  simple  rural 
manners  of  Galilee — these  two  working  to- 
gether, but  chiefly  and  most  powerfully  the 
last,  upon  the  gracious  and  tender  influence  of 
which  he  enlarges  with  a  dainty  eloquence  which 
makes  one  fain  to  believe,  though  experience  is 
little  in  favor  of  the  idea,  that  the  soft  hills 
and  green  pastures,  the  sweet  shadow  of  olive 
woods  and  glimmer  of  inland  waters,  are  not 
only  full  of  moral  influence,  but  of  the  loftiest 
inspiration." 

With  pointing  out  the  utter  inadequacy  of 
this  explanation,  we  have  nothing  to  do  in  this 
introduction.  This  has  been  ably  done  by  Dr. 
Tulloch,  and  that  part  of  his  work  devoted  to 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  17 

this  duty  is  most  eloquent  and  impressive.  Here 
again  the  work  of  M.  Renan  is  a  failure.  He 
only  makes  us  feel  every  moment  that  we  read 
his  attempted  explanations  more  than  ever  that 
the  life  and  character  of  Christ,  and  the  origin 
of  Christianity  are  utterly  inexplicable  on  any 
theory  that  ignores  the  Divine  and  miraculous. 
In  the  sublime  character  which  he  has  drawn 
for  Christ  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  he 
has  served  the  cause  he  meant  to  injure.  Yet 
this  part  of  M.  Kenan's  work  is  not  without 
its  dangers.  It  is  this  high  appreciation  of  the 
character  of  our  Lord  and  his  truly- eloquent 
statement  of  it  which  gives  popularity  to  the 
book,  and,  where  the  subtile  infidelity  is  not 
detected,  finds  for  it  a  place  in  the  Christian 
home  and  library.  We  have  heard  good  Chris- 
tians admiringly  speak  of  this  book,  and  unsus- 
pectingly pronounce  the  Christ  of  M.  Renan  most 
beautiful  and  perfect.  The  following  thoughts 
of  M.  De  Pressense,  an  eminent  clergyman  of 
the  Reformed  Church  of  France,  who  has  writ- 


18  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

ten  an  excellent  reply  to  Renan's  work,  are  just 
and  suggestive :  "  M.  Renan's  book  at  bottom 
flatters  all  the  bad  cotemporaneous  instincts;  it 
makes  the  apotheosis  of  that  melancholy  and 
voluptuous  skepticism  which  covers  up  with  a 
certain  distinction  and  a  certain  charm  the  most 
positive  materialism;  it  flatters  our  languid 
wills,  substitutes  the  worship  of  the  beautiful 
for  the  worship  of  the  holy,  and  authorizes,  by 
the  false  ideal  which  it  presents  to  us,  a  facti- 
tious religious  sentiment  which  demands  no  sac- 
rifice, no  manly  act,  covers  up  the  cross  under 
flowers,  and  at  last  only  gives  back  to  humanity 
its  old  idol,  newly  carved  and  painted.  This 
idol  is  no  other  than  humanity  itself.  This  mix- 
ture of  atheism  and  sensibility  is  particularly 
dangerous,  because  it  meets  preexistent  tenden- 
cies and  colors  them  with  a  fallacious  poesy. 
The  art  of  the  historian,  or  rather  of  the  ro- 
mance writer — Renan — consists  in  his  hiding  the 
entire  absence  of  all  belief  under  graceful  met- 
aphors and  an  unctuous  style,  just  as  the  brill- 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  19 

iant  snow  of  the  Alps  covers  up  the  abyss 
and  deprives  the  traveler  of  the  salutary  horror 
which  would  save  him." 

Another  feature  of  the  work  of  M.  Renan  is 
the  view  he  takes  of  the  origin  of  the  Gospels. 
It  is  impossible  to  detect  any  system  of  criti- 
cism on  which  he  proceeds  in  settling  the  import- 
ant questions  of  authorship,  date,  etc.,  of  these 
sacred  books.  In  fact,  he  follows  no  school.  The 
theories  of  Strauss  he  simply  sets  aside,  though 
he  compliments  the  author  of  the  "  Lehen  Je%u^^ 
and  was  evidently  very  powerfully  influenced  by 
that  work  in  the  composition  of  many  parts  of 
his  own.  Of  the  labors  of  Baur  and  the  Tubin- 
gen divines  he  knows  nothing,  or  at  least  makes 
no  account  of  them.  In  fact  his  system,  or 
rather  non-system,  is  his  own.  He  claims  for 
it  also  a  high  scientific  value,  and  yet,  while 
claiming  such  an  authority,  we  find  him  every- 
where freely  indulging  in  a  spirit  of  the  most 
arbitrary  and  unauthorized  assertion.  Without 
alleging   any  facts,  or   even   condescending   to 


20,  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION, 

any  argumentation,  he  declares  the  Gospels  to 
be  books  which  grew  into  their  present  propor- 
tions under  the  hands  of  a  great  multitude  of 
authors,  each  man  adding  to  his  scanty  manu- 
script any  incident  or  utterance  that  specially 
impressed  himself.  Out  of  the  multitudes  of 
manuscripts  thus  formed  the  present  Gospels 
were  accepted  and  sanctioned  by  the  Church. 
How  on  such  a  supposition  these  Gospels  grew 
up  into  such  marvelous  unity  he  does  not  pre- 
tend to  tell  us.  Indeed,  he  does  not  find  any 
unity,  either  in  any  individual  Gospel,  or  in 
their  relation  to  each  other.  Wherever  his  own 
judgment,  on  the  intuitional  power  of  which 
he  places  a  remarkably  high  estimate,  finds  ap- 
parent confusion,  or  contradiction,  or  inconsist- 
ency, or  improbability,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
set  it  aside.  The  Gospels  in  his  judgment  are 
in  some  sense  historical,  but  by  no  means  re- 
liable as  historical  records,  and  in  no  sense  in- 
spired. They  are  compilations  made  by  incom- 
petent hands,  even  though  in  some  parts  they 


EDITORIAL  INRTODUCTION.  21 

may  be  the  work  of  the  authors  whose  names 
they  bear.  The  compilers,  whoever  they  were, 
were  partisan  writers,  avowed  disciples  of  him 
whose  biography  they  write;  and  what  in  his 
opinion  is  still  more  unfortunate,  they  were 
not  able  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  won- 
derful human  character  of  him  of  whom  thej? 
wrote,  but  were  constantly  mistaking  his  true 
character,  and  aiming  at  gathering  about  their 
adored  hero  the  halo  of  the  wonderful  and  mar- 
velous. 

Of  course  M.  Renan  follows  all  other  modern 
skeptical  critics  in  finding  peculiar  difficulties  in 
St.  John's  Gospel.  In  his  judgment  it  was 
simply  impossible  for  the  son  of  Zebedee,  the 
fisherman  of  Galilee,  to  be  the  author  of  those 
profoundly  philosophical  discourses  found  in 
that  Gospel,  or  even  to  comprehend  them  suffi- 
ciently to  record  them  for  us,  if  they  had  ever 
been  spoken  by  our  Lord.  He  claims  that  the 
ideas  were  of  later  origin  than  the  age  of  Christ 
or  the  lifetime  of  John,  and  bear  on  their  face 


22  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

certain  evidence  of  an  origin  remote  from  Judea. 
Yet  he  allows  that  St.  John  may  have  furnished 
the  historical  ground-work  on  which  much  later 
and  more  philosophical  writers  ingrafted  these 
remarkable  discourses.  He  dwells,  too,  very 
strongly  on  the  differences  between  the  earlier 
Gospels  and  that  of  John;  differences  which  he 
so  far  exaggerates  as  to  enable  him  to  declare 
that,  ''If  Jesus  spoke  according  to  St.  Mat- 
thew, he  certainly  did  not  speak  according  to 
St.  John."  It  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred 
to  M.  Renan  that  no  one  claims  for  St.  John 
the  authorship  of  the  wonderful  discourses  which 
he  records,  but  that  the  author  of  the  Gospel 
containing  those  discourses  only  relates  them 
as  the  sayings  of  that  man  whom  Renan  him- 
self describes  as  the  most  wonderful  genius, 
and  most  profound  philosopher,  and  most  orig- 
inal thinker  the  world  had  then  produced. 
Surely  such  a  person  might  have  uttered  these 
discourses,  and  surely  the  loving  disciple  was 
competent  merely  to  record  them. 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  23 

The  difference  in  style  and  contents  between 
the  three  earlier  Gospels  and  that  of  St.  John 
is  not  a  discovery  of  M.  Renan,  but  has  long 
since  been  pointed  out  and  accounted  for  by 
orthodox  critics.  In  reality  it  presents  no  diffi- 
culty; it  is  easily  and  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  by  the  difference  of  the  individuality  and 
scope  of  the  writers,  as  w^ell  as  by  the  fact  of 
the  later  origin  of  John's  Gospel.  Owing  to 
this  later  origin  we  may  take  it  for  granted 
that  the  synoptical  Gospels  were  generally 
known  when  John  wrote;  that  he,  therefore, 
purposely  abstaining  from  writing  anew  what 
they  had  at  sufficient  length  recorded,  only 
sought  to  complete  them  by  narrating  those 
portions  of  the  life  of  Jesus  which  had  been 
omitted  by  the  others,  and  especially  by  re- 
cording those  very  discourses  which  they  had 
not  given. 

The  following  excellent  thoughts  on  this  point 
wc  quote  from  the  same  English  reviewer  of 
Renan's    work,   who   has    already   furnished   uti 


24  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

one  or  two  valuable  paragraphs :  "  How  far  this 
characteristic  distinction  may  have  arisen  from 
a  difference  of  audience  we  do  not  undertake  to 
decide;  but  an  intelligent  reader  will  perceive 
that  in  various  specified  cases  the  audience 
mentioned  in  the  Gospel  of  John  is  of  an 
altogether  different  character  from  the  rustic 
crowds  of  Matthew.  There  is,  in  the  first  place, 
Nicodemus,  with  whom  the  Master  treated  in 
private  of  high  and  difficult  matters,  which  it 
would  have  been  utterly  impracticable  to  dis- 
cuss on  the  mountain  or  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
in  presence  of  a  fluctuating  and  ignorant  mul- 
titude; and,  toward  the  end  of  the  Gospel,  it 
is  with  the  intimate  circle  of  his  immediate 
disciples,  gathered  round  him  in  awe,  and  dis- 
may, and  painful  half- comprehension,  like  peo- 
ple at  a  death-bed,  that  the  Savior  talks — 
speaking  to  them  things  which  they  understood 
*  afterward,'  as  the  record  itself  pathetically 
says.  Such  an  auditory  was  little  likely  to 
be  addressed  in  the  broader  general  discourses 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  25 

with  which  the  ministry  of  Christ  began.  To 
deliver  to  them,  under  such  circumstances,  an- 
other Sermon  on  the  Mount,  would  have  been 
a  proceeding  entirely  false  to  that  human  nature 
which  was  ever  surpassed  but  never  contra- 
dicted by  Jesus  of  Nazareth;  and  what  is  un- 
questionably true  of  the  discussions  which  begin, 
and  of  the  wonderful  and  affecting  intercourse 
which  closes  this  Gospel,  has  also,  so  far  as  we 
are  able  to  judge,  every  appearance  of  being 
applicable  to  the  intervening  portions.  It  is 
not  the  out-door  crowd  which  can  do  nothing 
but  listen,  but  the  groups  in  the  porches  of  the 
synagogues,  on  the  steps  of  the  Temple,  curious 
and  hostile,  laying  traps  for  the  speaker,  whom 
we  perceive  dimly  through  John's  narrative; 
and  the  distinction  is  natural  enough,  and  easy 
to  understand.  But  the  question  is  one  which 
demands  larger  space  and  fuller  treatment.  It 
is  to  John  we  owe  the  narrative  unequaled  in 
human  literature,  of  these  last  communings  with 
His  chosen  friends,  which  are  to  most  Christian 


26  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

souls  the  most  profoundly  affecting  part  of  the 
history  of  Christ.  His  is  the  story  of  that  last 
mortal  meal,  where,  as  yet  unassailed  and  un- 
condemned,  the  Redeemer  sat  among  his  fol- 
lowers with  the  prescience  of  death  in  his  eyes, 
addressing  to  them  those  counsels  and  those 
promises  of  which  it  was  hard  for  them  to  see 
the  occasion ;  while  they,  alarmed,  and  dismayed, 
and  awe-stricken,  asked  bewildered  questions, 
and  knew  not  what  they  said." 

Our  author,  Dr.  Tulloch,  ably  discusses  these 
false  critical  methods  of  Renan  in  his  third 
and  fourth  lectures,  and  with  as  much  fullness, 
perhaps,  as  Renan' s  loose,  confused,  and  con- 
tradictory views  deserve;  but  the  subject  itself 
is  of  the  highest  importance,  and  we  wish  the 
lecturer  had  been  in  a  little  less  haste,  and  had 
entered  more  fully  and  critically  into  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  points  w^hich  M.  Renan  raises. 
It  is  a  subject,  however,  that  belongs  more 
properly  to  higher  biblical  criticism,  has  really 
very    little    logical    connection    with    the    other 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  27 

parts  of  M.  Renan's  book,  and  a  more  critical 
discussion  would,  perhaps,  detract  from  our 
author's  more  popular  aim  and  ^  method.  We 
are  glad  to  find  in  the  admirable  introductory 
chapters  to  Dr.  Nast's  Commentary,  a  very  full 
and  able  discussion  of  this  important  question 
of  "the  Origin  of  the  Gospels,"  and  that  the 
learned  commentator  has  there  not  only  met 
the  older  views  of  Strauss,  but  has  even  antici- 
pated the  conjectures  of  Renan,  and  the  still 
more  carefully  elaborated  views  of  Strauss  pre- 
sented in  his  new  "Life  of  Jesus." 

The  admirable  little  work  of  Dr.  Tulloch  is 
by  no  means  untimely  or  unnecessary.  Al- 
though the  work  of  Renan  has  nearly  passed 
through  its  ephemeral  life,  and  the  popular  tide 
has  already  turned  against  it,  yet  its  false  prin- 
ciples and  methods  still  survive,  and  have  not 
only  produced  their  poisonous  effects  in  many 
minds,  but  are  still  reappearing  in  other  works 
just  issuing  from  the  press.  At  this  time  the 
evangelical    Churches   of   Germany   are   under- 


28  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

going  the  same  fermentation  as  those  of  France 
on  the  publication  of  Kenan's  book.  This  ex- 
citement has  been  created  by  the  appearance 
of  the  work  of  a  learned  divine,  M.  Schenkel, 
entitled  the  "  Characteristics  of  Jesus  Christy' 
and  which,  like  the  work  of  M.  Renan,  is  an 
effort  to  reduce  Christianity  to  a  simple  moral 
evolution  without  miracles  and  without  revela- 
tion, abandoning  entirely  all  faith  in  the  super- 
natural. Still  more  recently  has  appeared  the 
new  work  of  Strauss,  entitled  '•'Das  Lehen  Jesu 
fur  das  Deutche  Volk  bearbeitet,''  which  is  not 
a  mere  recast  of  the  earlier  work,  but  substan- 
tially a  new  book,  primarily  designed  "for  the 
people,"  and  which  has  already  passed  through 
its  second  edition,  and  will  soon  appear  in  an 
English  dress.  It  is  well,  then,  that  Dr.  Tul- 
loch  has  not  confined  himself  to  answering 
merely  the  specific  errors  of  Renan,  but  has 
discussed  the  false  principles,  assumptions,  and 
critical  methods  on  which  the  ''  Vie  de  Jesus''  is 
constructed — principles  and  assumptions  which 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  29 

are  nearly  the  same  as  those  adopted  in  the 
much  more  able  works  of  Schenkel  and  Strauss. 
It  is  evident  that  the  great  battle  of  Chris- 
tianity in  our  day  is  to  be  fought  over  the  ques- 
tions of  the  Divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
the  Divine  nature  of  Christ.  Modern  skepti-- 
cism  has  leveled  its  strongest  batteries  on  these 
points.  The  aim  of  its  blows,  though  in  two 
directions,  is  yet  single — out  of  the  Scriptures 
and  out  of  Christ  must  be  eliminated  every 
Divine  element,  and  both  alike  must  be  reduced 
to  the  sphere  of  the  human.  The  Scriptures 
must  be  emptied  of  inspiration,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  Christ  of  all  Divine  features.  To  satisfy 
the  cravings  of  the  Christian  heart,  or  rather 
to  allay  the  fears  that  would  be  excited  by  so 
plain  a  statement  of  their  object,  these  skeptics 
seem  willing  to  compensate  for  the  loss  of  these 
Divine  characteristics  by  exalting,  to  the  highest 
possible  point  of  admiration,  the  human  product 
that  is  left.  The  Scriptures,  though  uninspired, 
are  still  by  far  the  most  sublime  and  valuable 


30  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

of  human  productions.  The  character  of  Jesus, 
though  only  human,  is  still  the  most  excellent 
of  all  human  lives,  and  by  its  surpassing  ex- 
cellence becomes  the  moral  inspiration  of  all 
subsequent  ages.  We  can  easily  see,  then,  how 
it  comes  that  some  of  the  highest  praises  ever 
bestowed  on  the  Scriptures  have  come  from 
men  who  at  the  same  time  are  undermining  all 
the  claims  of  these  sacred  records  to  rehable 
truth  and  Divine  authority  by  denying  their 
inspiration;  and  how  men,  who  deny  all  super- 
human characteristics  of  Jesus,  may  yet  exalt 
him  as  the  first  and  best  among  men.  Still  we 
believe  there  is  a  sort  of  honesty  in  these  ad- 
miring descriptions;  that  these  men  are  really 
charmed  by  what  they  find  in  Christ,  and  that 
there  is  something  strange  in  the  fascination 
which  binds  the  hearts  of  these  men  to  the 
wonderful  character  of  Jesus.  Is  it  not  the 
Divine  attraction  of  that  mysterious  character 
operating  on  these  men  at  the  very  moment 
that  they  are  denying  its  existence? 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  31 

The  Church  needs  not  fear  to  accept  this  new 
battle  offered  by  modern  skepticism.  True,  it 
strikes  at  the  most  vital  part  of  our  Chris- 
tianity, but  for  that  very  reason  it  must  fail. 
Christianity  can  afford  to  lean  on  the  character 
of  her  Divine  Founder,  and  to  witness  without 
fear  the  attacks  of  her  enemies  on  the  Rock 
of  Ages.  She  may  confidently  repeat  his  own 
challenge,  "Which  of  you  convinceth  me  of 
sin?" — a  question  which  no  one  yet  has  been 
bold  enough  to  take  up.  There  is,  perhaps,  a 
little  danger  that  some  may  be  deceived  by 
the  exalted  descriptions  of  Christ  given  by  this 
school  of  skeptics,  and  yet  we  think  but  few; 
for  after  all  it  is  a  strange  incongruous  char- 
acter that  is  presented  to  us  in  "the  Christ 
of  modern  criticism;"  contradictory,  either  de- 
ceiving or  being  deceived,  if  not,  indeed,  both; 
exalted  almost  to  divine  excellence  in  some 
respects,  and  in  others  reduced  below  the  in- 
telligence, candor,  and  honesty  of  ordinary  men. 
"They   may   dispute,"    says    M.    Guizot,    "the 


32  EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION. 

nature  and  supernatural  power  of  Jesus  Christ: 
but  they  can  not  dispute  the  perfection,  the 
sublimity  of  his  actions  and  of  his  precepts, 
of  his  life  and  of  his  moral  law.  And,  indeed, 
not  only  do  they  not  dispute  them,  they  cele- 
brate them  with  gratitude  and  complaisance; 
they  seem  even  willing  to  give  back  to  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  man  the  superiority  which  they  take 
away  from  him  in  refusing  to  see  God  in  him. 
But  then,  what  incoherences,  what  contradic- 
tions, what  falsehood,  what  moral  impossibility 
in  his  history  as  they  represent  it!  What  a 
series  of  hypotheses  irreconcilable  with  the  facts 
which  they  admit!  This  man,  perfect  and  sub- 
lime, is  at  the  same  time  a  dreamer  or  a  char- 
latan ;  a  dupe  himself  and  a  deceiver  of  others ; 
the  dupe  of  his  own  mystic  exaltation  when  he 
believes  in  his  own  miracles,  a  voluntary  de- 
ceiver when  he  arranges  appearances  so  as  to 
lead  others  to  believe  them.  The  history  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  no  more  than  a  tissue  of  chime- 
ras and  impositions.     And  yet  the  hero  of  this 


EDITORIAL  INTRODUCTION.  33 

history  remains  perfect,  sublime,  incomparable, 

the    greatest    genius    and    the    greatest    heart 

among  men;  the  type  of  virtue   and  of  moral 

beauty,   the   supreme   and    legitimate    head   of 

humanity  V 

I.  W.  WILEY. 
Cincinnati,  1865. 

3 


PEEFATOET  NOTE. 


These  Lectures  were  written  during  last 
Winter  in  Rome,  for  the  use  of  my  stu- 
dents in  St.  Andrew's.  Compelled  by  iU- 
health  to  leave  the  active  discharge  of  my 
duties  in  the  hands  of  others,  I  felt,  with 
returning  strength,  reluctant  to  be  idle  in 
my  professional  capacity,  even  amid  the 
engrossing  glories  of  Rome.  My  atten- 
tion had  been  drawn  to  M.  Renans  vol- 
ume before  leaving  home.  It  encountered 
me  in  all  my  wanderings  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  Levant  in  the  early  Winter, 
It  was  every-where  a  common  topic  of 
conversation.    Many  minds  were  evidently 

35 


36  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

disposed  to  accept  it  as  a  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  Christianity.  Many  more  did 
not  know  very  well  what  to  think  of  it^ 
but  were  disposed  to  regard  it  as  a  very 
significant,  if  not  altogether  successful,  at- 
tack upon  religion  and  the  Church.  I 
thought  I  could  not  do  better  than  write 
a  few  lectures  upon  it. 

Some  friends  in  R,ome,  knowing  what  I 
was  about,  asked  me  to  read  the  lectures; 
and  they  were  read  there  to  successive 
companies  of  friends,  chiefly  clerical — 
American,  Anglican,  and  Scotch-Presbyte- 
rian— whose  intelligent  criticism  I  recall 
with  pleasure. 

To  myself  these  few  lectures  must  al- 
ways have  something  of  a  mournful  inter- 
est, associated  as  they  have  been  with  a 
time  of  painful  trial  and  suffering.  At 
such  a  time  one  learns  to  look  within,  to 


PEE  FA  TOR  Y  NO  TE.  37 

see  on  what  his  life  is  resting.  Christian- 
ity is  nothing  to  me  or  any  man,  if  it  is 
not  a  source  of  living  strength — "the  light 
of  life."  This,  I  trust,  I  have  found  it  to 
be  in  a  time  of  need.  And  out  of  the 
fullness  of  my  feeling  I  have  sj^oken — 
very  imperfectly,  I  am  aware— it  may  be 
weakly,  according  to  the  convictions  of 
others,  below  what  they  may  feel  and 
realize  of  Divine  truth,  but  honestly,  ac- 
cording to  my  own  convictions,  as  I  have 
always  sought  to  do. 

Grave,  however,  as  are  the  faults  of  M. 
Renan's  work,  and  unworthy  as  appears  to 
me  the  spirit  animating  certain  parts  of  it, 
I  have  not  felt  called  upon  to  indulge  in 
any  denunciation  of  either.  To  all  per- 
sonal criticism  in  such  discussions  I  have  a 
strong  aversion.  It  never  does  any  good, 
and  it  is  in  itself  a  mean  and  contempt!- 


38  PREFA  TOR  Y  NO  TE. 

ble  weapon.  In  a  time  like  ours,  when 
Christian  truth  needs  so  much  the  advo- 
cacy of  reason  as  well  as  of  zeal,  it  is 
painful  and  sad  to  think  how  the  cause  of 
this  truth  sometimes  suffers  from  a  mode 
of  advocacy  inconsistent  not  only  with 
Christian  principle,  but  with  those  rules 
of  honorable  courtesy  toward  opponents 
which  now  prevail  in  all  higher  circles  of 
intellectual  activity. 

I  may  add  that  I  have  not  seen  Dr. 
Strauss's  new  and  popular  work  on  the 
"Life  of  Jesus,"  and  that  all  my  remarks, 
so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  of  course  apply 
to  his  previous  well-known  work. 

CuEPRi,  May. 


CONTENTS. 


c 

PAGE. 

Editorial  Introduction 3 

Prefatory  Note 35 

I. 

General  Remarks — Positivism  and  the  Super- 
natural       41 

II. 
Nature  of  Evidence  for  the  Christian  Mira- 
cles     73 

III. 
Origin   and   Character   of   the    Gospels   ac- 
cording TO  M.  Renan — M.  Renan's  Critical 
Method loi 

IV. 

Integrity  of  the  Gospels — ^The  Gospel  of  St. 

John -^Parallel  of  the   Gospels  with  the 

Lives   of  the   Saints 133 

39 


40  CONTENTS. 

V. 

PAGE. 

Origin  of  Christianity  according  to  M.  Re- 
nan — Person  and  Character  of  Jesus  .     .     .171 

VI. 

Person  and  Character  of  Jesus  continued — 
Unintelligibility,  Inconsistency,  and  Inade- 
quACY  of  M.  Renan's  Portrait 304 


LECTURES. 


I. 

POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATUAL. 

The  publication  of  M.  Renan's  "Vie  de 
Jesus,"  marks  a  crisis  in  the  present  course 
of  philosophical  and  religious  opinion.  This 
is  its  chief  significance.  The  book  itself 
has  been  judged  very  differently,  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view — denied  all  merit  by 
some — ^loudly  applauded  by  others;  but  the 
grave  import  of  its  appearance,  and  of  its 
immediate  wide-spread  circulation  through- 
out Europe,  can  not  be  questioned  by  any. 

Note. — The    references    are    throughout   to   the    fifth 
French  edition. 

41 


42       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SVPERNATUBAL. 

It  has  caused  a  greater  shock  in  Christen- 
dom than  any  work  since  Dr.  Strauss's 
"Leben  Jesu,"  while  the  attractiveness  of 
its  form  and  style  has  already  given  it  a 
reputation  and  an  influence  far  more  ex- 
tensive than  its  more  elaborate  German 
predecessor.  In  England,  and  throughout 
the  Continent,  it  is  a  common  topic  of 
conversation.  It  is  heard  of  amid  all  the 
excitements  of  political,  and  of  military 
struggle;  in  the  halls  of  Oxford,  in  the 
salons  of  Paris,  in  the  churches  of  Italy, 
in  the  counting-houses  of  the  Levant. 
While  we  write,  it  is  the  subject  of  sol- 
emn "reparation"  services  in  aU  Catholic 
countries,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Smyrna, 
Apostolic  Vicar  of  Asia  Minor,  has  just 
published  a  "Pastoral"  to  his  clergy,  in 
vindication  of  the  faith  against  its  daring 
statements.     It  is  indispensable  that  stu- 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNA TUBAL.       43 

dents  in  divinity  should  know  something 
of  such  a  work,  or  rather — for  no  student 
can  be  kept  ignorant  of  it — that  they 
should  be  able  to  say  something  re§pifding 
it,  not  merely  by  way  of  deprecation  and 
condemnation,  but  of  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion and  reply. 

Like  its  German  predecessor,  the  "Vie 
de  Jesus"  marks  the  spring-tide  of  an  ad- 
vancing wave  of  thought  inimical  to  Chris- 
tianity. As  the  former  was  the  result 
of  Hegelian  speculation  and  of  the  crisis 
reached  by  rationalistic  criticism,  the  nat- 
ural consummation  of  the  antichristian 
activity  of  the  German  intellect  through 
many  years,  so  the  work  of  M.  Renan  is 
the  result,  and,  it  may  be  hoped,  the  con- 
summation of  the  course  of  materialistic 
thought,  known  as  Positivism,  which  since 
then  has  been  active,  not  only  in  France, 


44       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

but  in  England,  Germany,  and  elsewhere, 
and    of   an   historical    criticism    divorced 
from  all  faith  and  true  reverence.     So  far 
there  is  a  remarkable  analogy  between  the 
works.     They  are  the  respective  types  of 
a  definite  mode  of  antichristian  thought. 
In  other  respects  they  do  not  present 
much  resemblance.     The  "Vie  de  Jesus" 
is  a  more  dangerous,  but,  so  to  speak,  a 
less  formidable  book.     It  is  more  danger- 
ous, because  it  addresses  a  far  wider  class 
of  readers;  it  is  designed  to  influence  the 
young  and  the  multitudes  of  educated  and 
half-educated  minds  in  our  day,  who  are 
impelled,  by  the    atmosphere    of  inquiry 
surrounding  them,  to   investigate    such   a 
subject  as  the  origin  of  Christianity,  but 
who  have  neither  the  resources  nor  the 
leisure  to  investigate  it  thoroughly.     It  is 
less  formidable,  because  less  solid,  and  ap- 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       45 

parently  less  earnest.  In  these  qualities 
the  German  work  is  greatly  superior.  In 
the  language  of  German  theology  the 
"Leben  Jesu"  was  acknowledged  to  be  a 
strictly  scientific  treatise,  addressed  to 
theologians  and  mainly  aiming  at  their  en- 
lightenment and  advance.  With  compara- 
tively few  attractions  of  manner  and  style, 
it  is  throughout  grave,  philosophical,  and 
vigorously  polemical,  presenting  an  array 
of  argument  and  learning  far  more  impos- 
ing than  the  light  and  rapid  pages  of  the 
present  work. 

But  the  chief  difference  in  the  influence 
of  the  two  works  will  be  found  to  arise 
from  the  different  modes  of  thought  which 
they  represent,  and  to  which  they  appeal. 
Neither  Hegelian  philosophy  nor  rational- 
istic criticism,  in  its  successive  develop- 
ments, strangely  exciting  as  they  were  in 


46       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

Germany,  created  much  excitement  be- 
yond Germany.  The  former  has  remained 
to  this  day  an  esoteric  system,  unknown 
save  to  a  limited  circle  of  speculative  stu- 
dents; it  is  said  to  have  been  abandoned 
or  idly  regarded  by  Dr.  Strauss  himself  in 
after  years.  Positivism,  within  the  last 
<^uarter  of  a  century,  has  become  an  act- 
ive and  even  fashionable  mode  of  thought, 
and  no  where  more  so  than  among  certain 
literary  and  intellectual  circles  in  England. 
So  far  as  it  is  a  philosophy,  it  is  adapted 
to  the  common  understanding,  and  falls  in 
fitly  with  the  scientific  and  social  tend- 
encies of  the  time,  while  it  has  received  a 
noted  impulse  from  certain  living  writers 
of  great  ability. 

But  Positivism  is,  characteristically,  not 
so  much  a  definite  philosophy  as  a  method 
of  philosophizing,  a  way  of  thinking  about 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       47 

science/  life,  and  religion.  And  this  way 
of  thinking  largely  aifects  many  who  know 
little  or  nothing  of  M.  Comte's  particular 
opinions,  or  who  may  not  even  have  heard 
of  M.  Comte  himself.  There  is  no  one 
who  knows  any  thing  of  current  literature, 
either  French  or  English,  who  does  not 
know  that  the  influence  of  Positivism  has 
in  this  manner  extended  widely,  and  pre- 
pared, as  it  were,  for  the  reception  of  a 
work  like  M.  Renan's,  which  should  apply 
its  principles  and  modes  of  reasoning  to 
the  Gospels  and  the  Life  of  Jesus. 

This  state  of  intellectual  preparation, 
combined  with  the  genuine  literary  merits 
of  the  "Vie  de  Jesus,"  is  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  its  extraordinary  circulation  and 
the  remarkable  interest  which  it  has  ex- 
cited every-where.  There  were  waiting, 
so  to  speak,  for  such  a  book,  many  minds 


48       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

stored  with  vague  novelties  as  to  the 
growth  of  religious  and  social  constitu- 
tions and  the  general  development  of  civ- 
ilization, such  as  Positivism  suggests,  and 
groping  in  that  dim  perplexity  of  spiritual 
inquiry  which  is  so  common  in  our  time. 
A  volume  which  professes  to  account  for 
the  origin  of  Christianity,  and  to  explain 
the  appearance  of  Jesus  on  ordinary  his- 
torical principles,  within  a  few  hundred 
pages,  written  in  a  charmingly  facile  style 
and  with  an  apparent  depth  of  thoughtful- 
ness  and  sentiment,  could  not  fail  to  secure 
hosts  of  readers  and  to  excite  universal 
attention. 

Some  critics,  we  observe,  have  turned 
the  extremely  popular  character  of  the 
work  into  a  reproach  against  it.  They 
allege  that  a  book  of  such  a  character 
places  itself  beyond  the  pale  of  grave  the- 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       49 

ological  discussion,  that  it  is  more  a  ro- 
mance than  any  thing  else,  and  scarcely 
deserves  serious  refutation.  Even  Dr. 
Ewald,  of  Gottingen,  who  would  be  sup- 
posed by  many  in  England  to  be  a  fellow- 
worker  with  M.  Renan,  is  reported  to  have 
denounced  the  volume  as  conceived  and 
written  in  a  spirit  unworthy  of  theological 
science.  But  whether  such  a  reproach  be 
deserving  or  not,  we  can  not  help  thinking 
that  it  is  an  unhappy  device  of  Christian 
theology  to  despise  and  overlook  any  book, 
evidently  influential,  on  such  a  ground.  It 
would  seem  as  if,  in  certain  quarters,  the 
old  antagonism  between  Christianity  and 
literature  in  its  more  attractive  forms  still 
lingers.  There  are  good  people  who  seem 
to  imagine  that  a  book  can  not  be  at  once 
very  pleasant  and  very  valuable.  Dull- 
ness has  its  prescriptive  rights;  and  a  cer- 

4 


50       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

tain  heaviness  of  thouglit  and  style  is 
supposed  to  be  peculiarly  suitable  in  theo- 
logical discussion.  Gravity  certainly  al- 
ways becomes  such  discussion.  But  even 
if  the  "Vie  de  Jesus"  should  appear  to  us 
lacking  in  appropriate  gravity,  it  would  be 
absurd  to  satisfy  ourselves  with  neglecting 
and  disparaging  it  merely  on  this  account; 
for  it  is  its  very  literary  attractiveness,  its 
clear  beauty  and  fluency  of  style,  its  con- 
fident gayety  and  piquancy  of  argument, 
the  ease,  lightness,  and  rapidity  with 
which  it  moves  along  through  all  the  dif- 
ficulties of  its  subject,  the  imaginative 
brilliance  which  lights  up  its  descriptive 
sketches,  and  the  glow  of  sentimental  en- 
thusiasm which  is  but  seldom  wanting  in 
its  moral  discussions,  which  give  to  it  its 
peculiar  influence,  and  make  it  at  once  so 
seductive  and  so  dangerous  to  many  minds. 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       51 

Nor,  we  confess,  much  as  we  shall  find 
occasion  to  condemn  M.  Renan's  tone,  do 
we  see  any  reason  to  doubt,  upon  the 
whole,  his  honesty  of  intention  in  this 
or  in  any  other  of  his  works,  which  are 
mostly  devoted  to  Biblical  or  religious 
subjects.  In  all  of  these  works  he  seems 
animated  by  a  spirit  of  inquiry,  which,  if 
tinged  by  a  pervading  materialism  and 
something  of  the  careless,  sensuous  ethics 
of  his  country,  is  yet,  in  its  way,  thought- 
ful and  sincere.  He  is  deeply  interested 
in  the  historical  origin  and  development  of 
religious  opinions;  and  to  the  investigation 
of  such  topics  he  has  brought  the  resources 
of  a  rare,  comprehensive,  and  living  learn- 
ing. Of  this  latter  point  there  can  be  no 
question,  whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
application  he  has  made  of  his  learning  in 
the  present  case,  particularly  of  those  ex- 


52       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

travagant  pretensions  as  to  the  Talmud  by 
which  he  has  sought  to  cany  the  weakness 
of  his  position  and  to  impose  upon  himself 
and  others.  His  scholarly  acquisitions  he 
has  further  improved  and  vivified  by  resi- 
dence in  the  East  and  intelligent  personal 
contact  with  Eastern  manners  and  institu- 
tions; while  to  his  other  qualifications  he 
adds  that  fine  turn  for  generalization  so 
characteristic  of  the  critical  and  historical 
intellect  of  France,  and  which  gives  to  all 
its  productions  a  rare  charm  for  educated 
readers. 

There  is  really  no  point  of  view,  there- 
fore, in  which  M.  Renan  can  be  conceived 
a  weak  or  contemptible  opponent,  or  in 
which  his  volume  does  not  demand  and 
require  the  awakened  attention  of  the 
Christian  theologian.  In  this  conviction 
these  lectures  have  originated,  and  as  they 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       53 

have  been  written  in  some  degree  to  sat- 
isfy the  writer's  own  mind,  as  well  as  dis- 
charge a  formal  duty,  they  may  be  found 
helpful  to  guide  and  inform  the  minds  of 
others. 

I.  M.  Renan's  book  first  demands  our 
attention  in  its  philosophical  aspect.  It 
is  the  expression,  we  have  said,  of  a  pre- 
vailing philosophical  tendency.  Its  funda- 
mental and  controlling  conception  takes  its 
rise  in  a  system  of  thought  very  marked 
at  the  present  time.  This  fact  is  apparent 
on  the  face  of  the  volume.  The  author 
not  only  does  not  conceal,  but  throughout 
the  introduction  and  early  chapters  pa- 
rades the  great  Positivist  idea  of  an  un- 
changing material  law  governing  all  things, 
the  tvorlcl  of  historg  as  well  as  the  loorld  of 
matter.  And  in  certain  passages  he  ex- 
pressly appeals  to  this  idea  as  the  neces- 


54       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

sarily  guiding  principle  of  all  historical 
investigation — and  of  the  investigation  of 
the  origin  of  Christianity^  no  less  than 
other  historical  problems — in  the  very 
same  manner  as  Strauss  appealed  to  cer- 
tain Hegelian  conceptions,  and  sought  to 
brmg  Christianity  within  their  conditions. 
He  tells  us,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in  one 
of  his  earliest  pages,*  that  the  "Gospels 
are  partly  legendary,"  for  the  reason  that 
"  they  are  full  of  miracles."  Any  miracu- 
lous relation  is  to  him  incompatible  with 
historical  veracity.  It  is  enough  to  stamp 
a  record  as  so  far  fictitious  or  legendary 
that  it  acknowledges  the  reality  of  the  su- 
pernatural, or  incloses  any  professed  mirac- 
ulous occurrences.  And  this,  he  contends, 
is  not  to  impose  any  preconception  or  the- 
ory  upon   history,   but    simply    to   insist 

■^Introduction,  p.  xv. 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       55 

upon  the  critical  observation  and  analysis 
of  facts.  "  It  is  not  in  the  name  of  this 
or  that  philosophy/'  he  says/^'  "but  it  is 
in  the  name  of  a  constant  experience  that 
we  banish  miracle  from  history.  We  do 
not  say  that  '  miracle  is  impossible/  but 
merely  that  no  miracle  has  been  hitherto 
proved."  "None  of  the  miracles  with 
which  ancient  histories  are  filled  have 
happened  under  scientific  conditions.  Uni- 
form observation  teaches  us  that  they  only 
happen  in  times  and  countries  where  peo- 
ple are  prepared  to  believe  them." 

We  shall  afterward  have  occasion  to  con- 
sider what  he  says  on  the  special  subject 
of  "scientific  conditions/'  applied  to  a  mir- 
acle, and  to  examine  the  value  of  his  sup- 
posed tests  or  conditions.  In  the  mean 
time  we  wish  to  fix  attention  upon  the 

*  Introduction,  pp.  1.  li. 


56       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

general  principles  of  his  philosophy,  rather 
than  their  particular  application.  He 
would  have  us  to  understand,  from  the 
above  statement,  that  he  and  the  school 
to  which  he  belongs  are  free  from  the- 
oretic bias  in  the  interpretation  of  histor- 
ical facts.  But  this  is  just  what  it  is 
impossible  to  concede  to  them.  Thei/  are 
theorists,  and  of  a  most  extreme  character, 
in  their  views  of  history,  and  their  expla- 
nation of  some  of  its  most  characteristic 
phenomena.  M.  Renan  may  pretend  not 
to  afi&rm  the  possibility  of  miracles,  merely 
to  judge  them  from  a  critical  and  histor- 
ical point  of  view,  but  such  an  affirmation 
is  in  the  face  of  the  whole  spirit  and  scope 
of  his  book.  It  is  contradicted  almost  in 
the  very  breath  in  which  he  utters  it ;  for 
why  should  recitals  of  miracles  be  neces- 
sarily legendary  if  miracle  be  not  held  to 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       57 

be  a  friori  impossible?*  On  what  ground, 
otherwise,  are  the  Gospels  at  once  pro- 
nounced to  be  partly  legendary?  For  ob- 
serve, this  is  said  antecedent  to  all  exam- 
ination of  the  Gospel  miracles,  or  their 
appropriate  evidence.  "No  miracle  has 
been  hitherto  proved!"  Is  not  this  to  beg 
the  whole  question  in  a  spirit  of  arbitrary 
theory?  For  what  but  such  a  theory  can 
cover  an  affirmation  of  such  sweeping  gen- 
erality? 

But  we  are  not  left  to  mere  inference 
for  M.  Renan's  theoretic  views  on  this 
subject.  In  another  and  very  striking 
passage — striking  both  in  itself  and  in  its 
connection — he  enunciates  them  with  the 
utmost  plainness.f  The  passage  is  found 
in  the  chapter  on  the  "Education  of  Je- 
sus"— a   chapter   singular    in    its   vague, 

*  Introduction,  p.  1.  f  Pp-  30-43. 


58       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

bold,  and  unauthorized  surmises.  He  de- 
scribes the  rustic  simplicity  in  the  midst 
of  which  Jesus  passed  his  youth  in  Gal- 
ileCj  as  a  quiet  villager,  loving  the  country 
and  having  no  taste  for  the  artifices  and 
pomps  of  CO  temporary  greatness.  Of  the 
imperial  world  surrounding  him  the  youth- 
ful Son  of  Mary  had  evidently  no  just 
conception.  The  earth  seemed  to  him  di- 
vided into  kingdoms  that  made  war  one 
with  another.  The  "Roman  peace,"  the 
"Homan  power,"  were  to  him  merely 
vague  conceptions.  The  name  of  "Caesar" 
alone  had  reached  his  ear.  The  imposing 
architectural  works  of  the  Herods  in  Gali- 
lee and  its  neighborhood  he  regarded  with 
displeasure.  All  he  loved  was  the  sweet 
Galilean  country,  with  its  artless  villages, 
its  clusters  of  lowly  cottages,  and  gardens, 
and  wine-presses  hewn  out  of  the  rock. 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       59 

its  wells,  tombSj  fig-trees,  and  olive-trees. 
"He  remained  always  near  to  nature. 
The  court  of  kings  was  to  him  only  a 
place  where  people  lived  arrayed  in  fine 
clothing."  And  while  the  youthful  Jesus 
was  thus  ignorant  of  the  cotemporary 
events  and  circumstances  of  his  time,  he 
knew  still  less  of  its  philosophy  and  sci- 
ence. The  great  idea  of  Greek  science, 
the  basis  of  all  philosophy,  was  unknown 
to  him — the  idea,  namely,  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world  is  by  universal  laws, 
and  not  by  capricious  deities.  "  Nearly  a 
century  before  him" — and  we  now  trans- 
late directly  from  M.  Renan — "Lucretius 
had  expounded,  in  an  admirable  manner, 
the  principle  of  the  inflexibility  of  the 
laws  of  nature.  The  negation  of  miracle, 
the  idea  that  all  proceeds  in  the  world  by 
laws  in  which  the  personal  intervention  of 


60       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

superior  beings  has  no  part,  were  truths 
held  in  common  by  the  great  schools  of 
every  country  which  had  received  Greek 
science.  Probably  even  Babylon  and  Per- 
sia were  not  strangers  to  them.  But  Jesus 
inew  nothing  of  this  progress.  Although 
born  in  an  epoch  in  which  the  principle  of 
positive  science  was  already  proclaimed, 
he  lived  in  the  full  consciousness  of  the 
supernatural.  Never,  perhaps,  had  the 
Jews  been  more  possessed  with  a  craving 
after  the  marvelous.  ...  In  this  respect 
Jesus  differed  nothing  from  his  compatri- 
ots. He  believed  in  the  existence  of  the 
devil,  whom  he  regarded  as  a  sort  of  evil 
genius;  he  imagined  that  nervous  maladies 
were  the  result  of  demon-possession.  The 
marvelous  was  not  exceptional  to  him ;  it 
was  the  normal  condition  of  his  life.  A 
man  ignorant  of  physical  law,  and  who  be- 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       61 

lieves  that  he  can  by  prayer  change  the 
course  of  the  weather  and  arrest  disease, 
and  even  death  itself,  finds  nothing  extra- 
ordinary in  a  miracle.  The  whole  course 
of  things  is  to  him  the  result  of  the  free 
volitions  of  Deity."  Such  a  man  was 
Jesus.  Such  was  the  intellectual  state 
of  Jesus. 

Here  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  M.  Re- 
nan's  philosophical  sentiments,  and  as  little 
doubt  of  the  manner  in  which  he  applies 
them  to  history.  It  is  his  evident  prin- 
ciple, as  it  is  that  of  the  whole  school  to 
which  he  belongs,  to  ignore  the  reality  of 
any  spiritual  or  Divine  government  of  the 
world.  The  order  of  the  universe  is  fixed 
in  certain  laws,  which  exclude  all  personal 
intervention,  and  remain  unchanging  for- 
ever. It  is  the  business  of  science  to 
discover  these  laws;  it  is  the  function  of 


62       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

the  historian  to  recognize  their  operation, 
and  to  interpret  by  them  the  whole  course  ' 
of  past  phenomena;  for  it  admits  of  no 
question  that  they  are  the  same  laws 
which  we  now  see  operating  around  us, 
which  have  been,  without  deviation,  oper- 
ating from  the  beginning.  There  is,  and 
can  be,  no  room,  therefore,  in  history  for 
miracle.  There  is  no  room  even  for  God, 
save  as  the  poetic  or  philosophical  ideal 
of  an  inflexible  system  of  law.  This  is 
Positivism  in  its  general  conception — the 
startling  creed  of  a  widely-prevailing  phi- 
losophy. Not  only  Christianity,  but  The- 
ism is  held  to  be  a  philosophical  mistake. 
The  world  has  not  advanced — ^nay,  has 
retrograded  from  the  days  of  the  great 
schools  of  Greek  science.  It  is  the  spirit 
of  Lucretius,  the  recognition  of  his  "in- 
exorable   Fatum,"   which   is   the    highest 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       63 

point  of  wisdom,  and  to  which  the  world 
must  return  as  the  spring  of  its  higher 
progress  and  the  consummation  of  all 
knowledge. 

It  is  somewhat  hard  for  the  Christian 
apologist  to  be  thus  continually  dragged 
from  the  fair  field  of  historical  evidence, 
to  a  discussion  of  the  ultimate  principles 
of  all  truth.  And  yet  it  is  a  very  in- 
structive fact,  that  every  school  of  unbe- 
lief is  now  driven  to  this  resource.  It 
makes  its  chief  attack  upon  Christianity 
from  behind  general  principles,  not  merely 
inimical  to  the  Church,  and  the  supernat- 
ural foundation  upon  which  it  rests,  but 
inimical  to  all  religion;  inimical,  in  fact, 
to  all  spiritual  philosophy,  and  every  noble 
creative  art  and  product  of  civihzation 
which  has  its  root  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
man — the  sphere  in  which  man  is  allied 


64       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

to  a  higlier  divine  life  than  the  mere  na- 
ture around  him,  which  he  can  see  and 
handle.  For  this  is  the  real  question  in- 
volved in  Positivism.  It  is  not,  as  writers 
like  M.  Renan  ingeniously  put  it,  a  ques- 
tion between  law  and  caprice,  order  and 
arbitrariness  in  the  government  of  the 
world.  There  is  no  Christian  thinker  who 
beheves  that  the  government  of  the  world 
is  otherwise  than  by  general  laws.  The 
universe  of  nature  is  conceived  by  all  re- 
flective minds  as  a  great  order  or  cosmos, 
and  the  course  of  history,  apparently  ir- 
regular as  it  has  been,  as  a  consistent  de- 
velopment in  the  great  system  of  things. 
The  Theist  recognizes  the  principle  of 
order  quite  as  plainly  as  the  Positivist; 
but  what  he  does  not  admit  is  the  merely- 
material  character  of  this  order.  He  main- 
tains, on  the  contrary,  that  order  is  every- 


POSmVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       G5 

where  the  du-ect  expression  of  a  living 
Divine  Will,  which  rules  in  and  by  the 
order.  He  acknowledges,  equally  with 
the  Positivist,  that  the  material  facts  or 
phenomena  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives 
are  capable  of  classification  into  general 
laws,  continually  subsisting,  and  of  which 
they  may  be  regarded  as  the  issue  or  mani- 
festation; but  he  does  not  allow  that  these 
material  phenomena,  or  their  laws,  exhaust 
the  realities  of  being.  On  the  contrary, 
he  holds  that  the  highest  being  of  man  is 
not  contained  in  them,  but  is  a  part  of, 
and  is  closely  allied  to,  a  higher  order 
of  being,  transcending  and  embracing  the 
other.  Every  higher  activity  of  our  na- 
ture presupposes  and  springs  from  this 
higher  order  of  being.  Religion  has  no 
meaning  apart  from  it.  Philosophy,  as  it 
has   been   conceived    by   all   the   highest 

5 


6Q       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

minds  of  the  human  race — by  a  Socrates 
or  a  Pascal,  or  even  by  a  Pythagoras  or  a 
Kant,  has  no  basis  without  it.  Art  of 
every  kind,  poetry,  painting,  and  sculp- 
ture, imply  and  appeal  to  it;  and,  save  for 
the  inspiration  they  draw  from  thence, 
would  be  merely  the  toys  of  an  idle  and 
frivolous  luxury.  Civilization,  in  its  leg- 
islative and  judicial  institutes,  and  in  all 
the  more  characteristic  and  elevating  forms 
of  its  manifestations,  rests  upon  it,  grows 
with  its  growth,  and  decays  with  its  cor- 
ruption. That  man  is  something  more 
than  matter,  that  there  is  a  divine  spirit 
in  him,  and  a  Divine  Spirit  above  him,  in 
whom  alone  he  lives,  and  that  this  divine 
order  of  being  is  higher  than  the  mere  ma- 
terial order,  and  may  for  wise  and  benefi- 
cent purposes  supersede  and  traverse  this 
lower    order;    that,  in    short,   there   is   a 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL-       67 

living  Supreme  Will,  directly  governing  all 
things,  and  communing  with  and  controll- 
ing the  will  of  man;  an  Almighty  and  Per- 
sonal  Hand,  which  "none  can  stay  from 
working"  —  such  a  faith  is  indeed  emi- 
nently Christian.  But  it  also  lies,  more 
or  less  obscurely,  at  the  root  of  every  form 
of  religion  and  every  conception  of  man  as 
a  being  capable  of  rational  and  moral  prog- 
ress. And  this  is  what  Positivism,  if  not 
in  all  cases  expressly,  yet  in  its  essential 
character  implicitly,  denies;  for  it  acknowl- 
edges nothing  higher  than  nature  and  the 
system  of  laws  into  which  nature  may  be 
resolved. 

Such  a  philosophy — if  philosophy  it  can 
be  called — necessarily  excludes  all  idea  of 
miracles.  It  ejects  the  miraculous  from 
history  because  it  has  already  ejected  God 
from  the  world.     Let  it  pretend  as  it  may 


68       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

not  to  impose  theory  upon  history,  it  does 
so  in  the  most  obvious  and  sweeping  man- 
ner. For  why  are  miracles  incredible? 
Not  because  they  have  been  examined  and 
found  to  be  devoid  of  credit,  but  because 
the  world  proceeds  by  general  laws  and 
not  by  personal  agency.  Deny  this  latter 
fact,  and  of  course  no  miracle  can  have 
ever  happened ;  for  a  miracle  in  its  very 
idea  presupposes  personal  agency.  But 
admit  the  reality  of  a  Divine  Intelligence 
and  "Will  governing  and  acting  in  every 
manifestation  of  nature  and  of  history, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  exclude  the  idea 
of  miracle,  or  at  once  set  it  aside.  For  if 
there  be  a  Divine  Intelligence  and  Will 
moving  all  things,  and  moving  man,  of 
which  man  is  a  sharer,  how  may  they  not 
manifest  themselves  directly  to  man  ? 
What  is   there,  then^  inconceivable,  still 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       69 

less  improbable,  in  the  supernatural?  Is 
not  the  Divine,  or  supernatural,  the  real- 
ity, the  substance,  of  which  nature,  the 
material,  is  only  the  shadow?  And  may 
not  miracle,  in  its  true  conception,  as 
brought  before  us  in  the  life  of  Christ,  and 
origin  of  Christianity,  take  its  right  place 
in  the  development  of  the  world's  history, 
as  a  direct  manifestation  of  the  Divine  for 
human  good;  as  the  stretching  forth  of 
the  Almighty  hand,  not  by  way  of  inter- 
ference, still  less  of  disturbance,  but  for 
the  purpose  of  urging  forward  in  a  more 
powerful  and  consistent  manner  the  wheels 
of  the  world's  progress.  Ma?/  not  miracle 
he  a  fact  of  this  kind?  We  do  not  mean- 
time take  higher  ground,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  take  higher  ground  to  upset 
the  pretensions  of  our  author's  philosophy. 
Surely  we  are  entitled  to  this  modest  sur- 


70       POSITIVISM  AND  TEE  SUPERNATURAL. 

mise !  For  how  imperfect  and  dim,  after 
all,  must  be  our  conceptions  of  the  highest 
order — ^how  little  can  we  be  entitled  to 
erect  our  little  generalizations  into  ex- 
haustive and  universal  canons !  What 
poor  judges  must  we  be  of  the  possible 
or  impossible  in  the  realm  of  God !  We 
do  not  dare  to  assign  bounds  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  history  or  to  apply  our  theories 
without  reserve  to  the  ways  of  God.  All 
this  Positivism  doe^  in  its  essential  prin- 
ciples. Is  it  not  enough  to  say  of  any 
philosophy  that  it  denies  God  and  dishon- 
ors man?  Taking  away  from  the  former 
all  personality  and  freedom  of  action — 
from  the  latter  all  soul,  all  life  beyond 
nature;  degrading  the  one  into  a  blind 
fate,  the  other  into  mere  matter. 

Whatever  may  be  the  rights  of  such  a 
philosophy,  it  can  not  have  any  claim  to 


POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       71 

stand  at  the  door  of  history,  and  to  de- 
termme  for  us  its  laws  and  the  character 
of  its  facts.  For  let  it  be  borne  in  mind 
that  M.  Renan  does  not  offer  a  single  word 
in  vindication  or  even  in  formal  exposition 
of  a  theory  by  which  he  at  once  shuts  out 
the  miraculous  from  history  and  God  from 
the  world  which  he  has  made.  He  does 
not  profess  to  argue  in  its  behalf;  he  sim- 
ply announces  it  as  the  ultimate  philos- 
ophy. The  Gospels  are  partly  legendary, 
because  they  are  in  part  records  of  mirac- 
ulous occurrences.  The  pretensions  of  a 
pseudo-philosophy  can  not  go  further.  We 
are  at  least  entitled  to  hold  our  own  posi- 
tion against  such  an  insolent  demand  to 
surrender.  Surely  it  is  not  the  Christian 
apologist  who  is  here  the  dogmatist.  He 
believes  in  God,  it  is  true,  but  he  does  not 
venture  to  accept  the  Christian  miracles 


72       POSITIVISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

without  inquiry  and  evidence.  M.  Kenan, 
at  once  rejects  them  without  inquiry,  be- 
cause he  has  no  faith  in  a  living  God,  and 
no  faith  in  the  Divine  government  of  the 
world. 


II. 


NATURE  OF  EVIDENCE  FOR  THE  CHRISTIAN 
MIRACLES. 

We  have  endeavored  to  explain  the  phil- 
osophical significance  of  M.  Renan's  vol- 
ume. It  comes  from  the  mint  of  French 
Positivism,  just  as  Strauss's  equally-famous 
and  more  elaborate  work  came  from  the 
mint  of  German  Pantheism.  Any  criti- 
cism which  fails  to  apprehend  the  specu- 
lative origin  of  these  remarkable  works 
will,  so  far,  fail  to  understand  them. 
Strauss  sought  to  turn  the  evangelical 
history  into  a  series  of  myths,  because  he 
had  already  confessedly  adopted  a  specu- 
lative system  inconsistent  with  the  idea 
of  the  veracitv  of  this  historv.     The  his- 


74  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

tory  must  be  false,  or  at  least  mythical, 
because,  according  to  him,  the  notiou  of  a 
personal  God  and  Creator  of  men,  and  of 
a  Son  of  God  revealing  the  will  of  a  Heav- 
enly Father,  is  imiMlosophical — a  dream 
of  superstition,  and  not  a  truth  of  reason, 
as  expounded  by  its  latest  and  highest 
prophet,  Hegel.  In  the  same  manner  M. 
Renan  denies  the  veracity  of  the  Gospels, 
in  part,  because  they  are  inconsistent  with 
his  philosophical  conception  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world  by  law.  The  notion  of 
a  Personal  Will  interposing  in  human  af- 
fairs is  incompatible  with  science,  which, 
according  to  his  view,  teaches,  with  irre- 
sistible force  of  evidence,  that  the  order 
of  the  universe  is  unchanging.  It  is  the 
speculative  error,  therefore,  which  is  the 
fruitful  and  germinant  error  in  both  cases; 
and  we   must   be   prepared  to  encounter 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  75 

such  false  philosophies  by  a  philosophy  at 
once  more  modest  and  more  comprehen- 
sive. We  must  be  ready,  from  the  bosom 
of  a  higher  thought,  as  well  as  of  a  deeper 
faith,  "to  give  a  reason  for  the  hope  that 
is  in  us."  It  may  seem  a  wearying  proc- 
ess to  be  obliged  thus  continually  to  go 
back  to  the  "principles  of  the  doctrine  of 
Christ/'  and  to  lay  over  again,  as  it  were, 
the  "foundation"  of  our  religion;  but  it 
is  a  necessity  from  which  no  student  can 
well  escape.  A  religion  that  is  not  philo- 
sophically grounded,  in  a  time  like  ours, 
must  feel  constantly  weak  in  presence  of 
the  persistent  attacks  made  upon  it  by 
philosophical  weapons  which  it  does  not 
understand,  and  the  real  strength  of 
which  may  be  either  greatly  underrated 
or  greatly  exaggerated,  according  to  its 
ignorance. 


76  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

A  clear  and  thoughtful  comi3rehetision 
of  the  principles  of  Theism  must  be  the 
best  and  the  only  adequate  means  of 
meeting  the  unbelief  propagated  by  such 
works.  It  is  not  enough  merely  to  learn 
those  principles,  or  gather  them  from  oth- 
erSj  but  we  must  sift  them,  and  make  them 
our  own  in  the  depths  of  our  spiritual  and 
rational  experience,  till  we  feel  that  the 
instincts  which  connect  us  with  a  personal 
God  and  Father  in  the  heavens  are  a  true 
part  of  our  very  being — deeper  and  more 
real  than  any  other  facts  in  the  universe, 
and  having,  therefore,  a  philosophical  or 
rational  groundwork,  in  comparison  with 
which  the  most  imposing  philosophical  the- 
ories are  mere  illusions,  incapable  of  mov- 
ing us.  Such  a  vital  experience  of  the 
rational  consistency  of  Theism  and  of  the 
harmony  of  its  truths  with  the  deepest 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  77 

study  of  nature  and  of  history,  and  with 
our  profoundest  insight  into  the  mysteries 
of  this  complex  being,  will  be  found  the 
best  safeguard  against  the  seductive  gen- 
eralizations of  writers  like  M.  Renan.  He 
denies  miracles  because  he  does  not  be- 
lieve in  a  Supreme  Will  governing  the 
world;  because  the  idea  of  material  latv 
has  swallowed  up,  with  him,  all  idea  of 
free  moral  volition.  We  believe  miracles, 
on  the  contrary — or,  at  least,  the  miracles 
of  the  Gospels,  because  the  reality  of  a 
Supreme  Will,  directing  the  world  and 
moving  in  all  the  affairs  of  men,  is  a  par- 
amount dictate  of  our  rational  conscious- 
ness— a  truth  which  asserts  itself  equally 
with  the  truth  of  our  own  personal  exist- 
ence; and  because  the  expression  of  this 
Will,  or  a  moral  Providence,  is  to  us  not 
only  a  higher  conception  than  that  of  ma- 


78  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

terial  law,  but  a  conception  which  embraces 
the  latter,  and  without  which  it  has  no 
meaning  and  no  reality.  We  are  utterly 
separated,  therefore,  in  thought,  as  well  as 
in  faith;  and  "miracle"  is  not  only  not 
impossible  to  us,  but  already  intelligible 
in  the  sphere  of  our  reason  and  the  light 
with  which  it  invests  the  manifestations 
of  nature  and  the  "ways  of  God  to  man." 

Where  there  is  such  an  opposition  of 
thought  in  regard  to  the  supernatural,  it 
may  seem  of  little  use  to  enter  into  more 
detailed  discussion  of  M.  Kenan's  views 
as  to  miracles.  But  on  the  same  ground 
we  might  decline  controversy  with  him  al- 
together ;  and  this  would  be  neither  a  use- 
ful nor  a  courageous  course.  The  Christian 
theologian  need  not  provoke  controversy, 
but  he  is  not  entitled  fairly  to  decline  it. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  79 

and,  disengaging  himself  from  contact  with 
an  evident  enemy,  to  pass  by  on  the  other 
side.  When  the  conflicts  of  doubt  and  of 
faith  are  so  incessant  and  perplexing  as  in 
our  age,  and  when  they  penetrate  into  all 
classes  of  society  and  all  channels  of  intel- 
lectual and  literary  intercourse,  it  is  far 
better  to  come  out  to  the  enemy,  and  meet 
him  at  every  point.  Truth  has  never  any 
thing  to  fear  in  such  discussion,  but  re- 
ceives new  confirmation  from  encounters 
with  every  novel  and  ingenious  fallacy 
which  ^eeks  to  pervert  it. 

Such  a  result  seems  to  us  particularly 
illustrated  by  our  author's  further  state- 
ments as  to  miracles  and  the  tests  or  con- 
ditions which  he  would  apply  to  them, 
and  we  now  proceed  to  consider  these 
statements.  After  telling  us  that  no  mir- 
acles have  "hitherto  been  proved,"  he  goes 


80  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

on  to  tell  us  what  sort  of  proof  he  desid- 
erates. The  passage  in  which  he  does  this 
is  the  only  piece  of  argument  which  he 
offers  on  the  subject;  and  the  argument 
has  evidently  appeared  to  himself  as  some- 
what original  and  convincing;  for  he  has 
repeated  and  dwelt  upon  it  with  pleasure 
in  the  Appendix  to  the  famous  Inaugural 
Lecture  which  occasioned  his  dismissal 
from  the  University  of  Paris,  and  which 
he  afterward  published  in  explanation  and 
justification  of  his  conduct. 

The  passage,  thereforcj  to  which  we  al- 
luded, invites  our  consideration;  and  all 
the  more  that  the  consideration  of  it  in- 
volves the  important  question  of  evidence 
touching  miracles,  and  the  Christian  mir- 
acles in  particular.  Nothing  can  well  be 
more  important  than  to  have  a  clear  and 
just  conception  of  the  nature  of  this  evi- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  81 

dence,  and  of  the  conditions  within  which 
it  claims  our  assent. 

M.  Renan's  argument  must  be  stated  in 
his  own  language :  "  No  miracle/'  he  says, 
"has  ever  been  performed  before  an  as- 
sembly of  men  capable  of  verifying  the 
miraculous  character  of  a  fact.  Neither 
common  people  nor  people  of  the  world 
are  fitted  to  do  this.  It  requires  great 
precaution  and  a  long  habit  of  scientific 
research.  Have  we  not,  for  example,  in 
our  time,  seen  society  become  the  dupe 
of  coarse  pretenses  or  puerile  illusions? 
Miraculous  facts,  so  called,  attested  by 
whole  villages,  have  disappeared  before  a 
more  rigorous  inquiry,  as  utterly  worth- 
less. And  if  it  be  thus  proved  that  no 
cotemporary  miracles  bear  discussion,  is  it 
not  likely  that  the  miracles  of  the  past, 
which  were  all  performed  in  the  presence 

6 


82  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

of  mere  popular  witnesses,  would  be  found 
equally  illusive  if  they  could  be  subjected 
to  the  same  careful  scrutiny?  .  .  .  "Were  a 
worker  of  miracles  to  present  himself  in 
these  days  with  pretensions  sufficiently  se- 
rious to  be  discussed,  and  to  announce  him- 
self, we  shall  suppose,  as  capable  of  raising 
the  dead,  what  should  we  do?  We  should 
appoint  a  commission,  composed  of  physi- 
ologists, physicians,  chemists,  and  persons 
trained  in  historical  criticism.  This  com- 
mission would  choose  a  dead  body;  would 
assure  themselves  that  it  was  in  reality  a 
dead  body;  would  select  a  room  for  the 
experiment;  and  arrange  an  entire  system 
of  precautions  necessary  to  place  the  re- 
sult beyond  doubt.  If,  under  such  condi- 
tions, the  raising  of  the  dead  was  effected, 
a  probability  nearly  equal  to  a  certainty 
would  be  obtained.     However,  as  an  ex- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  83 

periment  must  be  always  capable  of  repeti- 
tion— as  those  who  have  once  done  a  thing 
must  be  able  to  do  it  again,  and  there  can 
be  no  question  of  easy  or  difficult  in  regard 
to  miracles — the  miracle-worker  would  be 
invited  to  reproduce  the  miraculous  fact  in 
other  circumstances,  and  upon  other  dead 
bodies,  in  another  company.  If  on  each 
occasion  the  miracle  succeeded,  two  things 
would  be  proved :  first,  that  supernatural 
facts  happen  in  the  world ;  and,  secondly, 
that  the  power  of  producing  them  belongs 
to,  or  is  delegated  to,  certain  persons.  But 
who  does  not  see  that  no  miracle  has  ever 
been  performed  under  these  conditions ;  that 
the  miracle-worker  has  always  himself  hith- 
erto chosen  the  subject  of  experiment,  and 
the  company  or  witnesses  before  whom  the 
act  was  to  be  done ;  more  frequently  still, 
perhaps,  that  it  is  the  people  themselves — 


84  TEE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

obeying  an  invincible  impulse  to  recognize 
something  Divine  in  all  great  events  and 
great  men — who  have  created,  after  the 
event,  the  miraculous  legend  or  story. 
Historical  criticism,  therefore,  compels  us 
to  maintain  it  as  a  principle,  that  recitals 
of  miraculous  events  are,  p^r  se,  inadmissi- 
ble ;  that  they  always  involve  credulity  or 
imposture,  and  must  consequently  be  sifted 
and  explained  to  see  how  much  of  truth, 
how  much  of  error  lies  in  them."* 

Such  is  M.  Kenan's  argument.  Let  us 
look  at  it  for  a  little.  Miraculous  facts 
must  be  scientifically  tested — this  is  the^ 
purport  of  the  argument.  But  is  not  this 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  an  absurd  and 
impracticable  test?  Does  not  the  very 
idea  of  such  a  test  raise  a  different  ques- 
tion, and  imply  a  fact  of  an  entirely  differ- 

*  Introduction,  pp.  1-lii. 


THE  CHRISTTAN  MIRACLES.  85 

ent  order  from  that  of  a  miracle  ?  Let  us 
take  an  example;  and  we  willingly  take 
one  suggested  by  M.  Renan's  language.  " 
Our  Lord,  in  the  course  of  his  jour- 
neys, went  into  the  city  of  Nain,  and  as 
he  went — "and  many  of  his  disciples 
and  much  people  went  with  him" — he 
met  a  funeral  procession,  with  the  dead 
body  of  a  young  man,  carried  on  an  open 
bier,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  East, 
and  his  weeping  mother  following  the  bier. 
"And  when  the  Lord  saw  her,  he  had 
compassion  on  her,  and  said  unto  her, 
Weep  not.  And  he  came  and  touched 
the  bier,  and  ih^j  that  bare  him  stood 
still.  And  he  said.  Young  man,  I  say 
unto  thee  arise.  And  he  that  was  dead 
sat  up  and  began  to  speak,  and  He  deliv- 
ered him  to  his  mother.  And  there  came 
a  fear  on  all.     And   they  glorified  God, 


86  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

saying,  That  a  great  Prophet  is  risen  up 
among  us,  and  that  God  hath  visited  his 
people."  Think  of  this  scene — a  touching 
and  memorable  incident — one  among  many, 
although  few  so  striking,  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord.  Then  recall,  for  contrast,  M.  Re- 
nan's  laboratory,  and  assembly  of  scientific 
commissioners  prepared  to  investigate  the 
alleged  resuscitation  of  a  dead  body,  care- 
fully selected  and  scientifically  scrutinized. 
The  contrasted  facts  are  of  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent order,  and  the  issue  contemplated  in 
the  one  case  is  quite  distinct  from  the  issue 
alleged  in  the  other. 

The  Widow  of  Nain's  son — was  he  raised 
from  the  dead  or  not  ?  It  is  perfectly  fair 
to  put  this  question.  The  fact  admits  of 
inquiry,  and  of  proof  if  it  happened.  But 
what  sort  of  inquiry,  and  what  sort  of 
proof?     Scientific   inquiry,    demonstrative 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  87 

proof,  says  M.  Renan.  Not  in  the  least,  we 
say.  The  nature  of  the  fact  is  inconsistent 
with  this  kind  of  inquiry  and  evidence. 
The  raising  of  the  Widow  of  Nain's  son, 
if  it  really  took  place,  was  an  historical 
fact,  and  as  such  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
scientific  experiment — the  tests  of  repeat- 
ed trial  and  demonstration  do  not  apply  to 
it.  It  belongs  to  a  different  category,  and 
rests  on  evidence  quite  distinct. 

M.  Renan  has  here  fallen  into  so  plain  a 
confusion  as  to  confound  a  fact  of  experi- 
ence, a  professed  historical  incident,  with 
a  scientific  conclusion.  Facts  of  incident 
or  contingency/ — and  all  historical  facts,  mi- 
raculous or  otherwise,  are  of  this  class — 
belong  to  a  sphere  of  their  own — differ- 
ent from  the  scientific — and  rest  on  their 
own  characteristic  and  appropriate  proof. 
Whether  ant/  thing  has  happened  or  not,  is 


88  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

a  question  of  contingency  to  be  settled  by 
the  evidence  of  those  who  profess  to  have 
seen  the  thing  happen.  Did  they  really 
see  it  ?  Were  they  truly  cognizant  of  it  ? 
And  were  they  capable  of  judging — not  by 
scientific  tests,  but  by  the  ordinary  exer- 
cise of  their  senses  and  their  judgment — 
whether  what  they  saw  was  a  reality,  and 
not  an  illusion?  Are  they  honest  men, 
and  have  they  no  inducement  to  say  that 
the  thing  happened,  if  it  did  not  happen  ? 
Such  is  the  nature  of  historical  evidence. 
Scientific  evidence  is  of  a  different  charac- 
ter; the  evidence  not  of  personal  testi- 
mony, but  of  continual  demonstration,  as 
has  been  already  described.  Scientific 
facts,  imlike  facts  of  mere  contingency  or 
incident,  are  truths  of  nature  which,  once 
discovered,  admit  of  repeated  verification, 
because  they  rest  on  the  constitution  of 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  89 

things — the  existing  laws  of  the  material 
universe;  they  are  equally  true  at  all 
times,  therefore,  and  their  proof  can  be 
demonstratively  exhibited  at  one  time  as 
well  as  another.  In  the  case  of  such 
facts,  personal  evidence  is  of  no  conse- 
quence. No  amount  of  such  evidence, 
apart  from  scientific  experiment  and  dem- 
onstration, could  establish,  for  example, 
the  law  of  gravitation,  or  the  law  of  equi- 
librium of  fluids.  You  or  I  may  believe 
these  scientific  truths,  because  of  Newton's 
statements  on  the  one  hand,  or  Pascal's 
statements  on  the  other ;  but  any  number 
of  such  statements  does  not  form  the  ap- 
propriate evidence  of  such  truths.  They 
rest  on  the  evidence  of  direct  observation 
and  experiment,  capable  of  constant  repe- 
tition, and  of  being  exhibited  in  formulae 
of  the  utmost  exactness  and  certainty. 


90  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

M.  Renan  asks  with  triumph,  Who  does 
not  know  that  no  miracle  has  ever  been 
performed  under  the  conditions  laid  down 
by  him?  May  we  not  ask,  with  a  more 
justly-founded  confidence,  Who  does  not 
see  that  a  miracle,  performed  under  such 
conditions,  would  be  no  miracle  at  all? 
So  soon  as  you  can  reduce  any  fact  within 
scientific  laws  and  conditions,  it  necessa- 
rily ceases  to  have  the  character  of  a  mira- 
cle. It  is  the  very  idea  of  miracle,  that  it 
transcends  these  laws  and  conditions ;  that 
it  is  an  incident  or  occurrence,  appearing 
within  the  sphere  of  human  experience, 
but  incapable  of  being  resolved  by  the 
ordinary  laws  which  govern  this  experi- 
ence. If  it  can  be  so  resolved,  it  loses  all 
pretension  to  be  miraculous,  or  even  mar- 
velous. And  so  it  is  that  many  pretended 
miracles  have  been  exploded  by  an  expla- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  91 

nation  of  the  natural  principles  or  laws  of 
operation  under  which  they  have  been  pro- 
duced. If  the  case  supposed  by  M.  Renan 
could  really  occur,  the  conclusions  w^hich 
he  draws  from  it  are  not  those  which 
would  really  follow.  The  true  inference 
would  be,  not  that  miraculous  powers  have 
been  intrusted  to  certain  persons,  but  that 
raising  the  dead  was  a  natural  or  scientific 
process,  and  not  an  exhibition  of  miracu- 
lous or  supernatural  power  at  all.  How 
could  it  be,  if  capable  of  spontaneous  repe- 
tition in  the  manner  suggested?  For  is 
not  this  capacity  of  repetition  just  the 
characteristic  of  a  scientific  fact?  Is  not 
the  process  described  the  very  process  by 
which  some  new  truth  or  law  of  science  is 
discovered  and  verified  ?  A  miracle,  on 
the  other  hand,  implies,  as  its  essential 
idea,  a  special  and  extraordinary  exercise 


92  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

of  Divine  power,  wMch,  from  its  very  na- 
ture, it  is  absurd  to  suppose  repeated  with 
a  view  to  verification. 

It  pleases  God  Almighty,  let  us  suppose, 
with  a  view  to  man's  good  and  the  dem- 
onstration of  his  own  glory,  to  interpose 
in  human  affairs,  arresting  the  ordinary 
action  of  the  la,ws  of  nature — as  in  the 
case  of  immediate  recovery  from  sickness, 
or  restoring  the  dead  to  life  again.  The 
operation  of  the  natural  forces  which  make 
up  the  course  of  human  experience,  and 
which  only  subsist  at  any  moment  be- 
cause God,  who  appointed  them,  continues 
them,  is  temporarily  set  aside  for  some 
wise  end,  so  that  the  Original  Will— of 
whom  alone  all  these  forces  are,  and  whose 
power  alone  they  express — is  made  bare, 
stands  forth,  as  it  were,  in  direct  demon- 
stration and  authority.     This  is  the  Chris- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  93 

tian  idea  of  a  miracle — the  will  of  God  in 
direct  and  extraordinary  exercise.  This  is 
the  nature  of  the  fact  which  M.  Renan  in- 
sists upon  calling  together  an  assembly  of 
scientific  persons  to  settle.  Is  this  the 
hand  of  God  ?  They  are  to  determine  the 
question  by  experiment,  and  by  an  appli- 
cation of  scientific  tests.  If  the  hand  of 
God  raises  a  dead  man  to  life,  it  must  re- 
peat the  process  under  a  more  rigorous  and 
vigilant  scientific  scrutiny,  before  the  sci- 
entific notables  can  determine  whether  the 
thing  has  been  reaUy  done  or  not.  It  is 
surely  needless  to  add,  that  no  miracle  has 
been  hitherto  performed  under  such  condi- 
tions; for  the  conditions  entirely  divest  the 
supposed  act  of  all  Divine  character — nay, 
of  all  moral  import.  The  idea  of  God 
repeating  an  exercise  of  his  will  for  the 
gratification  or  information  of  an  assembly 


94  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

of  savanSy  is  surely  one  of  the  most  prepos- 
terous— might  we  not  say  blasphemous  ? — 
ideas  that  could  have  occurred  to  any 
mind. 

For  historical  facts,  or  facts  of  incident, 
there  can  only  be  the  evidence  of  personal 
teBtimony — no  other.  Did  an  alleged  fact 
happen  yesterday,  to-day,  a  hundred,  or  a 
thousand  years  ago,  how  can  we  learn 
whether  it  happened  or  not?  By  care- 
fully examining  the  evidence  of  those  who 
profess  to  have  witnessed  the  fact.  If 
their  evidence  is  satisfactory,  if  it  stands 
the  tests  we  are  bound  to  apply  to  it,  as 
to  the  honesty  and  competency  of  the  wit- 
nesses, we  are  bound  to  accept  it;  or,  at 
least,  if  we  reject  it,  we  must  reject  simi- 
lar evidence  in  other  cases;  in  short,  we 
destroy  the  foundations  of  historical  credi- 
bility.    And,  essentially,  the  case  is  not 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  95 

altered  by  the  alleged  fact  being  a  miracle. 
Was  the  widow  of  Nain's  son  raised  from 
the  dead  ?  Was  Lazarus  restored  to  life 
again  after  having  lain  in  the  grave  three 
days  ?  If  we  allow  such  facts  to  be  capa- 
ble of  proof  at  all,  they  can  only  be  proved 
by  evidence  of  the  same  kind  as  certifies 
the  fact  that  Julius  Csesar  was  slain  in  the 
Senate  at  Rome  on  a  certain  day  of  the 
year  44  B.  C,  or  any  other  equally-admitted 
historical  occurrence. 

It  is  very  true  that,  in  the  case  of  a 
professed  miraculous  occurrence,  other  con- 
siderations, besides  the  mere  amount  and 
value  of  the  personal  evidence,  must  come 
into  view,  and  at  times  so  prominently  as 
to  render  almost  unnecessary  the  consider- 
ation of  the  alleged  evidence.  In  order 
to  establish  a  miracle,  it  is  by  no  means 
enough  that  we   have  a  host  of  honest- 


96  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

minded  people  saying  that  they  saw  such 
a  thing  at  such  a  time.  To  this  extent  M. 
Kenan's  skepticism  is  perfectly  justifiable. 
If  we  were  told,  for  example,  by  some 
twelve  grave  and  honest  people  that  they 
saw  a  man  on  a  given  day  or  night  ascend 
to  the  roof  of  a  room,  and  float  suspended 
in  the  air  without  any  apparent  support, 
we  should  not,  perhaps,  distrust  their  tes- 
timony, or  say  that  they  meant  to  deceive 
us;  but  we  should,  nevertheless,  refuse 
our  assent  to  their  story.  We  should  not 
believe  that  any  man  did  what  they  say 
he  did.  And  the  case  is  no  imaginary  one 
in  a  time  like  ours.  "Whatever  might  be 
the  apparent  strength  of  the  evidence 
here,  we  could  not  believe  it;  and  why? 
not  simply  because  the  alleged  fact  contra- 
dicts the  laws  of  nature — M.  K-enan's  plea 
against  all  miracles — but  because  while  it 


TEE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  97 

does  contradict  the  laws  of  nature,  it  does 
so  with  no  serious  intention,  with  no  moral, 
not  to  say,  no  beneficent  aim.  It  bears  the 
stamp  of  falsehood  on  its  front — meaning 
nothing,  accomplishing  nothing — a  notable 
instance  of  human  folly.  Here  the  princi- 
ple "Nee  deus  intersit"  at  once  comes  into 
play,  and  may  serve  to  settle  the  matter 
without  looking  at  the  evidence  at  all. 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  miracle,  in 
any  case,  from  general  considerations  as  to 
the  character  of  God  and  his  government 
of  the  world.  For  what  is  miracle,  accord- 
ing to  our  frequent  definition,  but  the 
special  action  of  God — the  extraordinary 
manifestation  of  the  Divine  Will  -,  and  how 
can  we,  therefore,  separate  it  from  the 
thought  of  God  and  the  apparent  designs 
of  his  will  in  nature  and  in  providence  ? 

To  suppose  an  aimless  or  absurd  miracle  is 

7 


98  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

to  suppose  an  impossibility.*  A  faith  that 
would  accept  miracles  without  Divine 
meaning  is  a  faith  without  reason,  and  for 
which  we  do  not  venture  to  plead. 

In  the  case  we  have  supposed,  therefore, 
we  refuse  our  assent  to  the  alleged  fact  at 
once  and  conclusively.  We  know  that  the 
twelve  witnesses  have  beeii  deceived  in 
some  manner,  although  we  may  not  be 
able  to  explain  in  what  manner.  We 
know  that  men  do  not  float  suspended 
from  the  roofs  of  houses,  nor  spirits  give 
answers  to  foolish  questions,  notwithstand- 
ing that  hundreds  may  tell  us  that  they 

^  Still  more  a  "moral  miracle,"  as  suggested  by  an 
Oxford  writer  in  certain  well-known  Bampton  Lectures. 
The  conception  of  a  "moral  miracle"  is  an  essentially 
skeptical  conception,  whicti  can  only  be  vindicated  on 
grounds  which  would  destroy  the  moral  tests  of  credi- 
bility, and  so  sap  the  foundations  of  religious  belief 
altogether. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES.  99 

have  seen  the  one  and  heard  the  other. 
They  may  have  done  so.  We  do  not  ques- 
tion their  honesty  nor  yet  the  evidence  of 
their  senses,  though  both  may  be  truly 
liable  to  question.  But  we  know,  never- 
theless, that  they  are  mistaken.  For  the 
very  reason  that  God  is  God,  and  the 
laws  of  his  universe  divine  laws,  we  know 
that  he  does  not  reveal  his  will  after  this 
manner. 

What  M.  Renan  says  with  reference  to 
legends  we  may  say  with  far  more  truth 
of  miracles  :  There  are  miracles — and  mira- 
cles. There  are  occurrences  in  the  past, 
professing  to  be  miraculous,  that  must 
perish  before  the  advance  of  historical 
criticism,  which  spares  not  any  thing,  and 
is  not  bound  to  spare  any  thing,  that  it  can 
really  explain.  Such  occurrences,  from 
shining  large  and  mysterious  to  our  early 


100  THE  CHRISTIAN  MIRACLES. 

imagination^  must  "fade  into  the  light  of 
common  day/'  and  disappear  in  its  full 
blaze.  But  there  are  other  occurrences, 
and  the  miracles  of  the  Gospels  among 
them,  which  shine  all  the  more  radiant, 
full,  and  significant,  the  more  they  are  ex- 
amined. Let  the  light  be  turned  upon  the 
mere  marvel  or  portent,  it  vanishes;  but 
these  witnesses  of  Divine  love  and  power, 
these  symbols — (TrjiJ.eja — of  an  infinitely 
beneficent  meaning,  only  stand  the  more 
firmly  in  the  face  of  any  philosophical  and 
historical  method  which  is  reverent  as  well 
as  keen,  inductive  as  well  as  subtile,  which 
is  faithful,  in  short,  to  the  moral  instincts 
as  well  as  the  intellectual  impulses  of 
humanity. 


III. 

ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

But  it  is  now  time  to  turn  to  another 
aspect  of  M.  Renan's  volume.  From  its 
philosophy,  we  proceed  to  consider  its  crit- 
icism. There  is  an  obvious  connection  be- 
tween the  two;  the  latter  is  greatly  influ- 
enced by  the  former,  as  in  Strauss's  case; 
but  the  "Vie  de  Jesus"  does  not  boast  any 
such  comprehensive  and  consistent  critical 
method — exactly  adapted  to  the  exigency 
produced  by  the  author's  philosophical  sys- 
tem— as  the  "  mythical  theory."  The  ex- 
igency is  of  this  kind :  the  Gospels  are  not 
to  be  accepted  as  historical  narratives — 
true  in  every  part,  or  even  in  the  main, 
like  other  histories.     The  miraculous  recit- 

101 


102       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

als  are  in  their  nature  unhistorical.  The 
question  then  comes — what  explanation  do 
they  admit  of?  Are  they  to  be  regarded 
as  having  any  claims  upon  our  belief  ?  Are 
they  in  any  degree  historically  credible  ? 

In  reply,  Dr.  Strauss  presented  at  least 
a  very  intelligible  and  consistent  answer. 
The  idea  of  the  myth  as  a  characteristic 
element  in  the  early  history  of  all  peoples 
was,  at  the  time  of  his  studies,  rising  into 
notice.  The  critical  mind  had  grasped  its 
importance,  and  recognized,  with  a  kind  of 
creative  joy,  how  widely  applicable  it  was, 
and  how  well  it  served  to  account  for  the 
highly-colored  story  of  all  infant  civiliza- 
tions, and  the  heroic  supernatural  aspects 
which  they  assumed.  The  answer  of 
Strauss  accordingly  was — the  Gospels  are 
in  no  degree  historically  credible.  But 
neither  are  they  fictitious,  still  less  false, 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS,  103 

in  the  ordinary  sense.  They  are  not  the 
impositions  or  inventions  of  any  sect  with 
a  view  to  deceive  the  world,  as  the  older 
forms  of  rationalism  inclined  or  permitted 
to  believe.  The  mere  progress  of  histor- 
ical study  had  entirely  exploded  that  no- 
tion. But  they  are  a  collection  of  myths, 
the  spontaneous  and  unconscious  growth 
of  the  Jewish  imagination  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era.  The  only  historical 
nucleus  of  the  whole  is  the  name  and  per- 
sonality of  Jesus,  dim  and  uncharacteris- 
tic— a  Jewish  Rabbi,  who  had  gathered 
around  him  a  number  of  followers  whose 
faith  and  hopes  he  had  greatly  excited  by 
his  preaching,  and  the  power  and  charm 
of  his  manner.  All  the  details  of  the  Gos- 
pels, miraculous  and  otherwise,  were  the 
creation  of  the  marvelous  excitement  thus 
kindled  in  a  few  minds,  and  breaking  forth 


104       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

into  objective  representation  and  story. 
The  narratives  of  our  Lord's  birth — of  the 
visit  of  the  Magi — of  his  youthful  appear- 
ance in  the  Temple — of  his  baptism,  tempt- 
ation, and  "beginning  of  miracles"  in  Cana 
of  Galilee — of  his  preachings  and  wonder- 
ful works  in  the  villages  around  the  Lake 
of  Tiberias — of  his  Paschal  journeys  and 
conflicts  with  the  Pharisees — of  his  tender 
touching  interviews  with '  his  disciples  in 
his  last  days — of  his  passion,  resurrection, 
and  ascension — all,  in  short,  that  rises  be- 
fore us  the  grand,  living,  most  human  yet 
most  Divine,  image  of  the  Gospels,  were 
the  idealizing  pictures,  and  nothing  more, 
with  which  the  Galilean  imagination  in 
a  trance  of  creative  enthusiasm  had  sur- 
rounded the  name  of  Jesus.  They  were 
the  embodied  dreams  of  a  few  Jews  raised 
to  a  hight  both  of  practical  heroism  and 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  105 

of  imaginative  hero-worship  by  the  long- 
inherited  traditions  of  a  baffled  and  self- 
concentrating  patriotism.  As  the  Hellenic 
imagination  created  circles  of  ideal  activity 
around  heroic  names ;  or  as  the  more  nar- 
row Latin  imagination  conceived  those  pa- 
triotic idyls  with  which  it  tried  to  deceive 
itself,  and  so  long  deceived  the  world,  as 
to  the  origin  and  progress  of  Roman  great- 
ness— so  did  the  Jewish  imagination  pro- 
duce the  Gospels,  and  impose  them  upon 
human  belief.  The  incidents  of  the  evan- 
gelical history  are  not  really  more  histor- 
ical than  the  exploits  of  Perseus  and 
Hercules,  or  the  legends  of  Virginia  and 
Coriolanus. 

Such  was  the  famous  mythical  theory. 
It  has  perished,  like  the  previous  theories 
of  the  "vulgar  rationalism"  which  it  super- 
seded.    There  is  no  historical  student  in 


106       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

our  day  would  urge  it  as  equal  to  the  ex- 
igency which  it  proposed  to  meet — as 
furnishing,  in  other  words,  a  complete  and 
satisfactory  explanation  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  evangelical  history.  But,  as  a  the- 
ory, it  had  at  least  the  advantage  we  have 
hinted — of  consistency  and  comprehensive- 
ness. Attributing  all  the  Gospels  more  or 
less  to  the  same  cause,  it  supposed  that 
they  gradually  sprang  up  as  the  Christian 
tradition  gathered  force  and  deepened  in 
dogmatic  intelligence,  and  that  none  of 
them  consequently,  in  their  present  form, 
ascend  to  the  first  apostolic  age.  In  what 
way  they  originated  and  were  molded  into 
their  present  shape  amid  the  conflicts  of 
the  time,  it  has  been  the  aim  of  the  well- 
known  Tubingen  school  of  skeptical  the- 
ology to  show. 

M.   Renan  does   not   profess  any  such 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  107 

comprehensive  critical  theory.  He  is  com- 
plimentary/ indeed,  to  Dr.  Strauss,  and 
commends  the  influence  of  his  labors ;  but 
his  own  historical  studies,  and  the  mere 
progress  of  historical  knowledge,  if  noth- 
ing else,  prevents  him  from  adopting  any 
similar  explanation  of  the  Gospels.*  He 
makes  little  or  nothing  of  the  mythical 
theory,  although  its  influence  may  be 
plainly  traced  in  many  parts  of  his  work. 
According  to  him,  the  Gosj)els  are  one  and 
all  to  be  regarded  as  the  productions  of  the 
first  century.  He  does  not  even  except 
the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  as  we  shall  find, 
although  his  views  regarding  this  Gospel 
are  very  wavering  and  difiicult  to  fix.     The 

^  Strauss' s  detailed  criticism  of  the  text  of  the  Gospels, 
he  says,  "  leaves  little  to  be  desired.  But  he  is  wrong  in 
his  theory;  and  his  book,  according  to  me,  has  the  disad- 
vantage of  keeping  too  much  on  theological,  too  little  on 
historical  ground." — Introduction,  p.  viii. 


108       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

following  is  his  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
several  Gospels. 

First,  he  supposes  that  there  were  two 
primitive  sources  of  evangeHcal  tradition, 
corresponding  to  the  discourses  or  Logia  of 
St.  Matthew,  and  the  anecdotical  narrative 
matter  of  St.  Mark.  He  believes  that  the 
expressions  of  Papias,  in  the  well-known 
passage  preserved  by  Eusebius,  favor,  and 
indeed  demand,  this  supposition;  and  he 
repeatedly  recurs  to  his  interpretation  of 
these  expressions,  and  urges  it  upon  his 
readers.  We  shall  afterward  consider  how 
far  he  is  justified  in  this,  by  a  special  ex- 
amination of  the  passage.  But,  in  the 
mean  time,  we  proceed  with  the  explana- 
tory statement  of  his  views. 

Following  out  this  idea,  he  supposes 
that  the  documents  mentioned  by  Papias, 
are  the  nuclei  of  our  present  Gospels  of  St. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  109 

Matthew  and  St.  Mark.     Gradually  these 
primitive  nuclei  of  the   evangelical  tradi- 
tion passed  into  more  elaborate  composite 
forms.     The  manner  in  which  this  transi- 
tion took  place  marks  the  second  stage  in 
the  history  of  the  evangelical  narratives. 
It  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to  our  author's 
theory  on  this  subject,  except  in  his  own 
language.     "  The  early  Christians,"  he  says, 
"cared  little  for  any  written  accounts  of 
the  sayings  or  actions  of  Jesus.     As  they 
believed  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  ap- 
proaching, they  only  cared  to  preserve  in 
their  hearts  the  living  image  of  their  Mas- 
ter about  to  appear  in  the  clouds  in  glory. 
The    evangelical    texts,    accordingly,    ac- 
quired little  authority  during  the  first  half- 
century  of  the  Christian  era.     No  scruple 
was  felt  in  supplementing,  combining,  and 
completing    them   from   different    sources 


110        ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

and  from  one  another.  The  poor  man, 
who  had  only  a  single  book,  naturally 
wished  it  to  contain  all  which  touched  his 
heart.  The  Christians  borrowed,  accord- 
ingly, from  one  another  these  small  books, 
and  each  transcribed  on  the  margin  of  his 
copy  the  touching  words  or  parables  which 
he  found  unknown  to  him  before.  The 
most  beautiful  result  in  the  world  was  in 
this  way  the  issue  of  an  obscure  and  en- 
tirely popular  elaboration !"  Is  there  not 
an  unconscious  irony  in  the  language? 
Thus  arose  our  present  Gospels  of  St.  Mat- 
thew and  St.  Mark — "  impersonal  composi- 
tions," bearing  no  trace  of  individual  au- 
thorship— ''ou  T auteur'  disparait  iotalementr 
The  third  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
Gospels  is  that  of  individual  compilation, 
represented  by  St.  Luke.  The  Gospel  of 
St.  Luke  is  "  a  regular  composition^  found- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  Ill 

ed  upon  anterior  documents.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  man  who  selects,  adapts,  com- 
bines ;"  a  work  "  at  second  hand/'  in  which 
the  words  of  Jesus  are  set  forth  more  re- 
flectively and  with  greater  arrangement. 
M.  Renan  makes  no  doubt  of  this  Gospel 
being  really  the  production  of  St.  Luke, 
the  companion  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  author 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Here,  then, 
we  have  a  definite  production  of  the  first 
century — following  very  soon  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  in  the  year  70 — genuine 
in  every  sense.  But  the  historical  value 
of  this  Gospel,  he  proceeds  to  say,  is  the 
least  of  all.  It  represses  details  with  a 
view  to  produce  an  artificial  agreement ;  it 
softens  passages  which  might  prove  embar- 
rassing to  the  growing  ideal  of  Christ  as 
Divine ;  it  exaggerates  the  miraculous,  and 
commits  errors  in  chronology.     The  author 


112  ORIGIN  OF  TEE  GOSPELS. 

is  entirely  ignorant  of  Hebrew,  and  does 
not  cite  any  of  the  words  of  Jesus  in  that 
language.  To  all  the  Jewish  localities  he 
gives  Greek  names.  St.  Luke,  in  short,  is 
a  harmonist  and  compiler,  who  uses  liber- 
ties with  his  texts,  and  does  not  scruple  to 
bring  them  into  a  forced  accord. 

The  fourth  and  final  stage  in  the  origin 
of  the  Gospels  is,  of  course,  the  stage  of 
speculation  and  conscious  narrative  pur- 
pose, represented  by  St.  John.  This  Gos- 
pel is  supposed,  also,  to  have  been  in  ex- 
istence in  the  end  of  the  first  century,  or 
the  very  beginning  of  the  second.  The 
statements  of  Justin  and  his  cotemporary 
apologists,  Tatian,  Anaxagoras,  and  The- 
ophilus  of  Antioch,  along  with  those  of 
Irenseus,  place  this  beyond  question.  M. 
Renan  even  inclines  to  regard  the  Gospel 
as  in  part,  at  least,  the  work  of  St.  John 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  113 

himself.  He  hesitates  greatly,  and  changes, 
apparently,  his  stand-point  and  his  conclu- 
sions as  they  suit  his  immediate  purposes. 
But  his  predominant  view  is,  that  John,  in 
his  old  age,  having  read  the  other  evangel- 
ical narratives,  and  marked  their  deficien- 
cies, and  being  moved,  moreover,  by  some 
feeling  of  offense  that  he  had  not  received 
a  sufficiently-prominent  place  in  these  nar- 
ratives, began  to  dictate  to  his  disciples  his 
own  impressions  and  reminiscences  of  the 
life  of  our  Lord ;  and  that  these  brief  notes 
of  their  master  were  afterward  elaborated 
and  supplemented  by  his  disciples.  He 
does  not  pretend,  however,  to  have  any 
clear  idea  how  far  this  process  of  revision 
and  addition  extended.  This  and  other 
difficult  questions  concerning  the  fourth 
Gospel  could  only  be  "  settled  by  some  in- 
sight into  the  events  of  that  mysterious 

8 


114       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

scliool  at  Ephesus  wMch  more  than  once 
appears  to  have  delighted  to  wrap  itself  in 
obscurity."  But  in  whatever  degree  the 
fourth  Gospel  may  have  been  the  work  of 
the  disciples  of  St.  John  rather  than  him- 
self, it  is  of  capital  value  as  an  authority 
regarding  our  Lord's  life.  Any  one  setting 
himself  to  write  this  life  without  a  precon- 
ceived theory  as  to  the  relative  value  of 
the  Gospels,  and  following  the  guidance 
merely  of  the  sentiment  of  the  subject, 
and  its  natural  development,  would  be  led, 
in  a  multitude  of  cases,  to  prefer  the  nar- 
rative of  St.  John  to  that  of  the  Synop- 
tics. M.  Renan,  in  short,  values  the  Gos- 
pel of  St.  John  for  its  historical  accuracy, 
and  disparages  it  for  its  discursive  doctrin- 
ism. The  language  he  uses  on  the  latter 
subject  must  be  as  strange  as  it  is  painful 
to  many  Christian  students.     How  often 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  115 

have  they  been  moved  by  the  sublime  and 
pregnant  discourses  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
thrilling  with  a  fullness  of  Divine  revela- 
tion which  at  once  satisfies  the  soul  and 
draws  forth  all  its  powers  !  To  our  author 
these  discourses  are  nothing  but  long  ego- 
tistical argumentations,  wanting  in  life, 
freshness,  and  force ! 

There  is  one  point,  in  particular,  on 
which  he  has  bestowed  great  pains  and 
elaboration.  The  tone  and  doctrine  of  the 
fourth  Gospel,  he  says,  are  quite  incon- 
sistent with  the  tone  and  doctrine  of  St. 
Matthew,  so  that  we  can  not  accept  both 
as  a  true  representation  of  Christ.  We 
must  make  our  choice  between  them.  "If 
Jesus  spoke  according  to  St.  Matthew,  he 
certainly  did  not  speak  according  to  St. 
John.  And  between  the  two,"  he  con- 
tinues, "no  critic  can  or  will  hesitate.     If 


116        ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

even  Papias  had  not  told  us  that  Matthew 
transcribed  the  words  of  Jesus  m  their 
original  form;  the  natural^,  the  ineffable 
truth,  the  matchless  charm  of  the  synop- 
tical discourses,  their  profoundly  Hebrew 
cast,  the  analogy  which  they  present  to 
the  sentences  of  the  Jewish  doctors  of  the 
same  age,  their  perfect  harmony  with  the 
natural  features  of  Galilee — all  these  traits, 
in  comparison  with  the  obscure  gnosis  and 
metaphorical  monotony  which  fill  the  dis- 
courses of  St.  John,  point  alike  to  the 
same  conclusion.  This  does  not  imply 
that  there  are  no  admirable  ghmpses  in 
the  discourses  of  St.  John — traits  which 
come  directly  from  Jesus.  But  their  mys- 
tical tone  in  no  degree  corresponds  to  the 
eloquence  of  Jesus,  such  as  we  picture  it 
to  ourselves  in  the  other  Gospels.  A  new 
spirit  has  breathed ;  the  gnosis  has  already 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  117 

commenced;  the  Galilean  era  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  finished;  the  hope  of  the 
new  coming  of  Christ  is  distant;  we  enter 
among  the  aridities  of  metaphysic,  the 
obscurities  of  abstract  dogma;  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus  is  not  there;  and  if  the  son  of 
Zebedeehas  really  traced  these  j)'ages  he 
must  have  forgotten  while  he  did  so  the 
Lake  of  Gennesareth,  and  the  delightful 
conversations  which  he  had  heard  upon  its 
banks." 

So  confidently  does  M.  Renan  express 
himself.  The  result  of  the  whole  is  that, 
according  to  him,  the  Gospels  contain  ele- 
ments of  history,  but  nothing  more.  They 
are  not  mere  fictions,  conscious — according 
to  the  old  infidel  view — or  unconscious — 
according  to  the  modern  mythical  view; 
but  neither  are  they  credible  historical 
narratives  throughout.    As  he  himself  puts 


118       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

it,  they  are  neither  biographies  after  the 
manner  of  Suetonius,  nor  merely  fictitious 
legends  after  the  manner  of  Philostratus. 
"I  should  compare  them  rather  to  the 
legends  of  the  Saints,  the  lives  of  Plotinus, 
of  Proclus,  and  of  Isidore,  and  other  writ- 
ings of  a  similar  kind,  where  historic 
veracity  and  the  intention  of  presenting 
models  of  virtue  combine  in  different  de- 
grees. The  inaccuracy,  which  is  a  feature 
of  all  such  popular  compositions,  makes 
itself  particularly  felt."  And,  in  illustra- 
tion, he  supposes  the  modern  parallel  of 
two  or  three  old  soldiers  of  the  Empire 
who  might  undertake  the  task  of  writing 
the  life  of  Napoleon  from  their  recollec- 
tions. There  is  no  parallel  too  audacious 
or  startling  for  M.  Renan,  if  it  only  appear 
to  his  vivacious  fancy  to  give  piquancy  to 
his  pages.     These  old  soldiers,  he  says, 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  119 

"would  make  all  sorts  of  mistakes  in 
the  narrations,  would  reverse  the  order 
of  their  hero's  exploits,  and  would  omit 
some  of  his  most  important  expeditions 
altogether;  but  they  would,  one  and  all, 
probably  preserve  a  high  degree  of  truth 
in  the  single  matter  of  the  character  of 
their  hero,  and  the  personal  impression 
which  he  made  upon  them."  In  this  re- 
spect "popular  histories  are  of  much  more 
value  than  solemn  and  official  history.  We 
can  say  as  much  for  the  Gospels.  Solely 
bent  on  setting  in  relief  the  excellence  of 
their  Master — his  miracles,  his  teachings — 


the  evangelists  show  an  entire  indifference 
to  all  which  is  not  of  the  same  spirit  as 
Jesus.  Contradictions  as  to  time,  place, 
and  persons  are  regarded  as  quite  insig- 
nificant; for  while  we  attribute  to  the 
words  of  Jesus  himself  a  high  degree  of 


120       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

inspiration,  we  are  far  from  according  the 
same  inspiration  to  the  evangelical  editors. 
These  we  must  regard  merely  as  scribes, 
having  one  aim  in  view — to  omit  nothing 
which  they  themselves  know. 

"  Beyond  contradiction,  some  precon- 
ceived ideas  must  mingle  themselves  with 
such  recollections.  Several  narratives,  es- 
pecially of  St.  Luke,  are  plainly  invented 
to  bring  into  more  lively  relief  the  portrait 
of  Jesus.  This  portrait  itself  would  un- 
dergo a  change  day  by  day.  Jesus  would 
be  a  unique  phenomenon  in  history  if  with 
the  part  he  played  he  had  not  been  very 
greatly  transfigured.  The  legend  of  Alex- 
ander was  already  in  full  play  before  the 
generation  of  his  companions  in  arms  had 
died  away.  That  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
commenced  in  his  lifetime.  A  rapid  work 
of  metamorphosis  proceeded  in  the  same 


ORIGIN  OF  TEE  GOSPELS.  121 

manner  during  the  twenty  or  thirty  years 
following  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  imposed 
upon  his  biography  the  rounding  touches 
of  an  ideal  legend.  Death  perfects  the 
most  complete  man.  It  exhibits  him  with- 
out stain  for  all  who  loved  him." 

We  must  postpone  to  another  lecture 
our  special  examination  of  M.  Renans 
views  as  now  presented,  and  the  grounds 
on  which  he  supports  them.  But  there 
are  certain  general  considerations  by  which, 
in  the  mean  time,  we  may  fairly  judge  the 
character  of  his  criticism. 

(1)  And,  first  of  all,  it  deserves  to  be 
noticed  how  entirely  subjective  his  method 
of  criticism  is.  The  Gospels  of  St.  Mat- 
thew and  St.  Mark,  he  says,  can  not  be 
received  as  original  in  their  present  shape; 
they  are   evidently  collections  or  miscel- 


122       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

lanea,  and  not  the  definite  productions  of 
single  minds,  as  they  have  descended  to 
us.  The  discourses  of  the  one,  and  the 
lively,  anecdotical  matter  of  the  other,  are 
the  only  parts  stamped  respectively  with 
originality.  Saving  the  obscure  hints  of 
Papias,  which  we  shall  find  do  not  warrant 
his  interpretation,  he  does  not  profess  to 
give  any  proof  of  these  statements,  nor 
does  he  seem  to  think  that  they  need 
proof.  So  the  matter  appears  to  him. 
And  in  the  same  spirit,  and  even  from  a 
more  subjective  point  of  view,  does  he 
deal  with  St.  Luke  and  St.  John.  He 
speaks  of  errors  in  chronology,  of  forced 
agreements,  of  exaggeration  of  the  mar- 
velous, of  ignorance  of  Hebrew  on  the  part 
of  the  former,  without  assigning  any  thing 
that  can  be  called  proof.  He  gives  a  few 
references,  nothing  more;  but  these  refer- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  123 

ences,  wliicli  we  have  been  at  the  trouble 
to  verify,  are  absurdly  inadequate  and  in- 
applicable. Not  one  of  them,  it  may  be 
said,  does  not  admit  of  an  interpretation 
inconsistent  with  that  which  he  puts  upon 
it.  And  this,  we  shall  find,  is  especially 
true  of  the  oppositions  of  thought  and 
doctrine  which  he  tries  to  fix  between 
St.  John  and  St.  Matthew.  These  oppo- 
sitions are,  in  great  part,  the  creation  of 
his  own  brain,  proceeding  from  his  determ- 
ination to  keep  out  of  view  what  does  not 
suit  his  purpose,  and  from  a  very  one-sided 
interpretation  of  other  passages. 

Throughout,  the  tone  of  M.  Kenan's 
criticism  is  of  the  same  subjective  char- 
acter. Nothing  weighs  with  him  in  com- 
parison with  his  own  internal  judgment  of 
the  documents  with  which  he  deals.  Tra- 
dition is  of  no  account;   Catholic  opinion 


124       OBIOIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

of  no  account;  evidence,  weighty  in  itself, 
because  resting  on  facts  which  none  can 
reasonably  dispute,  and  therefore  calcu- 
lated equally  to  affect  all  minds,  is  no 
where  urged  by  him — is  apparently  never 
even  taken  into  consideration.  While  pro- 
fessing to  base  his  inquiries  on  a  historical 
and  not  a  theological  foundation,  he  is  yet 
dogmatic  in  the  highest  degree.  The  most 
subjective  school  of  German  theology  is 
not  more  subjective  or  less  soberly  in- 
ductive than  he  is. 

(2)  M.  Renan  is,  in  truth,  more  than 
subjective  in  his  criticism  of  the  Gospels. 
He  is  arbitrary  and  personal  in  an  unwont- 
ed measure.  He  not  only  separates  him- 
self from  the  Catholic  interpretation  of  the 
Church,  but  he  does  not  ally  himself  with 
any  school  of  criticism.     He  is  not  careful 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  125 

to  fortify  his  own  judgments,  even  the 
most  amazing  of  them,  by  the  coincident 
opinions  of  scholars  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  the  special  studies  upon 
which  he  has  ventured  in  this  volume. 
As  a  skeptic,  he  wages  war  with  Catholic 
sentiment  and  tradition  almost  entirely  at 
his  own  hand.  To  the  great  skeptical 
school  of  Germany,  who  have  labored  with 
such  perseverance  in  this  field,  he  scarcely 
alludes.  He  makes  no  use  of  their  con- 
clusions; he  builds  nothing  upon  them. 
And  yet  he  professes  that  it  is  one  of  his 
principles  not  to  do  over  again  what  has 
been  well  done.  He  professes,  in  short, 
not  once,  but  throughout,  to  wark,  as  it 
were,  from  the  center  of  accumulated  in- 
quiries, historical  and  critical,  which  have 
all  tended  to  the  same  result,  and  left 
many  of  the  startling  issues  which  he  has 


126       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

popularizedj  beyond  question  in  the  eyes 
of  all  scholars.  And  yet  he  stands  singu- 
larly aloof  from  any  class  of  these  inqui- 
ries, and  pays  no  deference  to  them.  For 
an  orthodox  critic*  to  write  regarding  the 
Gospels,  and  to  ignore  the  labors  of  the 
Tubingen  divines,  would  be  at  once  deemed 
a  reproach  to  him — a  mark  of  ignorance ; 
but  M.  Renan  apparently  knows  nothing 
of  them,  or  at  least  makes  no  account  of 
them.  We  do  not  blame  him  for  this. 
But  he  is  to  be  blamed  for  claiming  every- 
where a  so-called  scientific  value  for  his 
conclusions  —  which  can  only  belong  to 
them    as   the   concurrent    conclusions    of 

*  This  has  been  remarked  by  M.  De  Presseuse,  who 
has  written  an  excellent  answer  to  M.  Renan's  volume — ■ 
an  answer  which  would  have  been  still  more  excellent,  if 
the  writer  had  been  here  and  there  more  intent  upon  the 
merits  of  his  case  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  reader,  than 
upon  the  personal  triumph  over  M.  Renan. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  127 

many  scholars,  and  as  resting  on  indisputa- 
ble data,  to  which  historical  criticism  has 
at  length  given  a  consistent  and  irresisti- 
ble meaning;  and  at  the  same  time  while 
claiming  such  an  authority,  we  find  him 
every-where  freely  indulging  in  a  spirit  of 
the  most  arbitrary  and  unauthorized  asser- 
tion. The  truth  is,  that  this  pretense  of 
scientific  value  for  the  views  of  an  advanced 
skeptical  criticism  in  this  particular  prov- 
ince of  inquiry,  is  absurd.  It  has  become 
a  common-place  of  skeptical  criticism,  but 
has  no  better  foundation  than  many  other 
common-places  which  this  criticism  de- 
spises. For  if  there  is  one  feature  of  the 
writings  of  this  school  more  remarkable 
than  another,  it  is  what  must  be  fairly 
called  their  utterly  unscientific  character — 
their  confusion,  mutual  contradictions,  and 
even    contemptuous   displacement   of   one 


128       ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

another.  As  Strauss  repudiates  Paulus, 
so  Renan  repudiates  Strauss.  No  book 
ever  showed  more  plainly  than  the  "Vie 
de  Jesus"  how  unsettled  this  whole  field 
of  inquiry  must  be,  regarded  from  a  scien- 
tific-historical point  of  view.  Whatever 
openings  toward  a  scientific  unanimity  of 
opinion  may  be  observable,  are  certainly 
not  in  the  direction  of  M.  Renan.  Con- 
cord is  least  of  all  an  attribute  of  skeptical 
historians  and  theologians.  While  heartily 
combining  against  Christianity,  they  show 
but  little  fraternal  love  and  indulgence  to 
each  other's  skepticisms.  They  level  their 
lances  against  a  common  foe,  but  they  also 
point  them,  often  with  equal  ardor,  against 
one  another. 

(3)    But   M.    Renan's    criticism   is   not 
only  arbitrary   and   unauthorized ;    it   is. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  129 

moreover,  inconsistent  as  an  historical 
method.  It  stamps  the  Gospels,  in  so  far 
as  they  are  miraculous,  with  an  inveterate 
incredibihty,  and  yet  it  professes  to  use 
them  as  historical  data  for  the  life  of 
Christ.  The  author  even  justifies  this 
course  by  an  appeal  to  the  alleged  parallels 
of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  a  certain  power  of  "divination  and 
conjecture"  in  reproducing  the  great  char- 
acters of  the  past.  He  claims  the  right, 
in  short,  and  carries  it  into  practice  every- 
where throughout  his  volume,  to  select 
and  adapt  the  texts  of  the  Gospels  as  he 
likes,  accepting  what  suits  him,  and  reject- 
ing what  does  not  fall  in  with  his  precon- 
ceptions and  ideal.  But  this  is  not  to 
write  history.  It  is  impossible  to  use  doc- 
umentary sources  after  such  a  fashion ;  or, 
at  any  rate,  it  is  incompatible  with  any 

9 


130  ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

fair  and  consistent  principles  of  historical 

criticism  to   do  so.     Legend  and   history 

must  be  kept  in  their  respective  places. 

The  former  may  be  a  safe  and  valuable 

stimulant  to  the  historical  imagination,  but 

it  is  useless — it  may  be  often  positively 

pernicious — as  a  guide  to  historical  truth. 

And,  particularly,  a  document  can  not  be 

regarded  as  at  once  legend  and  history,  in 

the  sense  and  to  the  degree,  presumed  by 

our  author  of  the   Gospels.     The  fallacy 

involved  in  his  parallel  of  the  Gospels  to 

the  Lives  of  the  Saints  we  shall  afterward 

see;  but  even  if  we  were  to  grant  this 

parallel,  it  would  not   serve  M.  Renan's 

purpose.     For   lives   of  saints,   as    much 

filled    with    miracles,    and,    therefore,   as 

legendary,  as  the  Gospels  are  according  to 

his  view,  would  not  be  regarded  by  any 

school  of  historians,  and  least  of  all  by 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  131 

the  critical  school  to  which  he  professes  to 
belong,  as  historical  documents,  any  more 
than  the  mythical  narrative  of  Livy, 
or  the  heroic  delineations  of  Homer.  It 
would  be  a  vain  task,  which  no  scholar 
would  attempt,  to  reproduce  the  biographic 
lineaments  of  such  saint,  any  more  than 
of  a  mythical  hero  of  the  early  ages  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  Ecclesiastical  tradition 
and  ar1>criticisni  may  delight  themselves 
with  the  imaginary  characteristics  and  ex- 
ploits of  legendary  saints,  but  such  ideal 
portraits,  religious  or  artistic,  are  recog- 
nized to  belong  to  quite  a  different  prov- 
ince from  the  historical.  The  Gospels, 
therefore,  can  not  be  used  in  the  double 
sense  of  M.  Renan.  The  principles  of  that 
historical  criticism  to  which  he  appeals  are 
directly  opposed  to  such  an  inconsistency. 
If  they  are  legendary  to  the  extent  he 


132  ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

supposes,  they  are  worthless  as  historical 
documents.  We  can  not  accept  them  with 
the  one  hand,  and  reject  them  with  the 
other;  for  they  are  homogeneous,  if  ever 
documents  were — informed  by  one  spirit, 
bearing  one  character,  and  stamped  alike 
in  their  miraculous  and  their  ordinary 
narrative  by  one  consistent  purpose  and 
meaning. 


IV. 

INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

Having  explained  the  critical  ground- 
work of  the  "  Vie  de  Jesus,"  we  now 
propose  to  examine  this  ground-work 
more  carefully.  We  have  remarked  how 
personal,  arbitrary,  and  unscientific  it  is, 
while  making  unusual  scieiitific  preten- 
sions. The  author  does  not  rest  his  crit- 
ical conclusions  on  full  inquiry,  and  minute 
induction  and  argument.  He  is  sentiment- 
al rather  than  judicial;  highly  authorita- 
tive, but  the  authority  implying  in  the 
main  little  more  than  his  own  ipse  dixit. 
The  simple-minded  reader  —  anxious  to 
know  the  truth,  and  conscious  of  his  igno- 
rance of  the  Talmud,  of  Philo,  and  it  may 

133 


134  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

be  even  of  Josephus — not  to  speak  of  the 
Zendavesta  and  the  Boundehesch — is  apt 
at  first  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  extraor- 
dinary confidence  of  the  author;  but  the 
more  carefully  he  reads,  the  less  impres- 
sion does  this  tone  make  upon  him.  And 
when  he  finds  the  same  confidence  and 
rashness  of  assertion  carried  into  subjects 
of  which  he  really  knows  something — for 
M.  Renan  loves  to  indulge  his  generalizing 
faculty  and  tendency  to  dogmatism  on  all 
subjects — he  is  able  to  estimate  the  book 
more  according  to  its  just  proportions  and 
value. 

There  are  three  points  in  M.  Renan's 
critical  account  of  the  Gospels  deserving 
attention.  I.  His  view  of  the  Gospels  of 
St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark.  II.  His  esti- 
mate of  the  fourth  Gospel,  and  the  sup- 
posed contradictions  which  it  presents  to 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  135 

that  of  Matthew.  And,  III.  His  general 
view  of  the  Gospels  as  legendary  biog- 
raphies. We  shall  consider  these  several 
points  in  succession. 

I.  He  proposes  mainly  to  base  his  con- 
clusions as  to  the  Gospels  of  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Mark  on  an  expression  of  Papias 
in  a  passage  preserved  by  Eusebius.  This 
passage  implies,  according  to  him,  that  the 
original  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  contained 
only  the  Logia,  or  discourses,  which  still 
form  so  large  a  part  of  it.  St.  Mark's 
Gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  originally 
little  more  than  a  collection  of  biographic 
anecdotes.  It  was  only  gradually,  by  a 
process  which  he  describee,  that  these 
Gospels  respectively  assumed  their  present 
form.  St.  Matthew  is  "characterized  by 
long   discourses ;    St.    Mark   is   above   all 


136  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

anecdotical — more  exact  than  the  first  as 
to  minute  facts,  brief  even  to  dryness, 
poor  in  discourse,  ill  composed." 

Now,  whether  this  be  a  true  account 
of  these  Gospels  or  not,  it  does  not  really 
correspond  to  the  statement  of  Papias. 
There  is  no  such  marked  contrast  implied 
in  his  language  as  is  here  drawn  from  it. 
It  is  true  Papias  uses  the  expression  ASytaj 
and  nothing  else,  in  speaking  of  St.  Mat- 
thew's Gospel;  but  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark 
is  described  as  containing  rd  ond  rod  Xptaroh 
^  Uxdivxa  r)  Tzpaidhra:^  Whatever,  therefore, 
may  be  the  precise  interpretation  of  logia^ 

*  "  Mark  being  the  interpreter  of  Peter,  whatsoever  he 
recorded  he  wrote  with  great  accuracy,  but  not,  however, 
in  the  order  in  which  it  was  spoken  or  done  by  our  Lord; 
for  he  neither  heard  nor  followed  our  Lord,  but,  as  before 
said,  he  was  in  company  with  Peter,  who  gave  him  such 
instruction  as  was  necessary,  but  not  to  give  a  history 
of  our  Lord's  discourses:  wherefore  Mark  has  not  erred 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  137 

there  is  no  warrant,  so  far  as  Papias  is 
concerned,  for  the  presumption  that  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Mark  was  originally  nothing 
more  than  a  brief  narrative  of  facts,  or 
collection  of  anecdotes.  It  is  expressly 
said  to  have  contained  the  things  "spoken" 
as  well  as  "done"  by  our  Lord.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  use  any  expressions  more 
fitly  answering  to  the  Gospel  in  its  present 
form. 

Is  there  really  any  more  reason  for  sup- 
posing St.  Matthew's  Gospel  to  have  been 
originally  nothing  more  than  a  collection 
of   discourses?      The   expression    "ilo^-fa," 

in  any  thing  by  writing  some  things  as  he  has  recorded 
them ;  for  he  was  carefully  attentive  to  one  thing — not  to 
pass  by  any  thing  that  he  heard,  or  to  state  any  thing 
falsely  in  these  accounts.  These  are  the  things  recorded 
by  Papias  respecting  Mark.  Concerning  Matthew  he 
speaks  thus :  Matthew  composed  his  history  in  the  Hebrew 
dialect,  and  every  one  translated  it  as  he  was  able," 


138  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

no  doubt,  mainly  suggests  the  idea  of  dis- 
courses, or  rather  "oracles,"  but  it  may  be 
held  to  bear  the  general  historic  sense  of 
"annals;"  it  is  maintained  by  competent 
and  impartial  critics  that  it  must  have  this 
meaning  here.  According  to  a  German 
critic,*  who  has  made  a  special  study  of 
all  the  Patristic  passages  regarding  the 
Gospels,  in  the  interest  of  no  school,  it 

■^  Kirchhofer,  in  his  Quellensammlung  zur  Geschichte 
d.  Neut.  Canons,  p.  33.  Liicke  also  maintains  that  the 
expression  ra  Idyia  entirely  corresponds  to  the  parallel 
phrase  applied  to  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  ra  vtto  tov  Xptarov  rj 
Ti^ExOevra  7]  Trpaxf^ivra — denoting  as  denominatio  a  potiori 
a  writing  embracing  the  relation  of  acts  as  well  as  dis- 
courses— in  the  same  manner  as  Papias,  when  he  describes 
the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark,  in  the  same  passage,  as  cvvra^iQ 
Tuv  KvpiaKtJv  16yo)v  does  not  mean  to  contradict  his  pre- 
vious statement  as  to  this  Gospel  containing  to,  TrpaxOevra 
as  well  as  ra  XexOivra.  This  further  phrase  of  Papias, 
indeed,  would  serve  conclusively  to  settle  the  matter  in 
the  eyes  of  all  who  simply  wish  to  ascertain  his  meaning 
without  having  any  theory  to  support. 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  139 

can  not  have  any  other  meaning,  when 
^dewed  in  its  whole  connection,  than  that 
of  an  "account  of  our  Lord's  deeds  as  well 
as  his  discourses."  It  is  absurd,  therefore, 
to  base  a  theory  on  this  mere  expression. 

Further,  it  deserves  to  be  noticed  that 
while  M.  Renan  makes  use  for  his  own 
purpose  of  the  words  of  Papias  preserved 
by  Eusebius,  he  entirely  ignores  another 
very  distinct  passage  of  Eusebius,  where 
we  are  told  that  Matthew,  "having  in  the 
first  instance  delivered  his  Gospel  to  his 
countrymen  in  their  own  language,  after- 
ward, when  he  was  about  to  leave  them 
and  extend  his  apostolic  mission  else- 
where, filled  up  or  completed  his  written 
Gospel,  for  the  use  of  those  whom  he  was 
leaving  behind,  as  compensation  for  his  ab- 
sence." This  would  indicate  that,  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  original  character 


140  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  it  was  afterward 
supplemented,  revised,  and  completed  by 
himself. 

Catholic  tradition,  and  the  voice  of  the 
fathers,  so  far  as  it  has  been  preserved — 
of  Irenseus,*  Origen,f  and  EusebiusJ — 
unanimously  presume  the  integrity  of  St. 
Matthew's  Gospel  from  the  beginning. 
Patristic  authority,  it  is  well  known,  is 
almost  unanimous  in  asserting  a  Hebrew 
original  of  this  Gospel,  prepared  by  the 
apostle  specially  for  the  use  of  his  coun- 
trymen, and  it  is  most  unlikely  that  such 
a  document  would  not  contain  a  narrative 
of  our  Lord's  miracles  as  well  as  of  his 
discourses.  And  when  we  turn  to  the 
Gospel   itself  it  is   found   to   bear  every 

*  Adv.  Haer.,  iii,  1. 

f  Comm.  in  Matt,  in  Euseb.  H.  E.,  vi,  25. 

J  H.  E.,  as  above. 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  141 

appearance  of  undivided  authorship.  It 
is  stamped  throughout  by  a  dominant  im- 
pression— a  special  and  individual  aim — 
exactly  answering  to  the  Patristic  idea  of 
f;  it.  It  is  the  Gospel  to  the  Hebrews.  The 
author  is  a  Jew  among  Jews,  and  obviously 
writing  for  Jews.  The  great  purpose  of 
his  Grospel  accordingly  is  to  exhibit  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah — as  the  accomplishment  of 
Hebrew  prophecy — the  fulfillment  of  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets.  Whatever  Jesus 
may  have  been  besides,  he  was  also  and 
primarily  the  Messiah,  the  highest  devel- 
opment of  Judaism,  humanly  speaking. 
He  was  not  merely  this  accomplishment 
in  an  external  sense,  but  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  all  that  was  good  in  Judaism — 
the  inheritor  of  whatever  moral  wisdom, 
whatever  spiritual  genius  survived  in  it. 
Although  we  can  not,  therefore,  say  with 


142  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

M.  Renan — for  it  is  neither  consistent  with 
reason  nor  evidence  to  say  it — that  Jesus 
Christ  was  "a  disciple  of  Hillel/'  that  he 
borrowed  from  the  Jewish  schools  those 
charming  moral  utterances  which  Matthew 
has  above  all  preserved  in  his  Gospel,  and 
that  "Philo  was  his  elder  brother" — al- 
though we  desiderate  all  historical  author- 
ity for  such  statements — we  do  not  doubt 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  Avise  according  to 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  Jews  of  his  time. 
"Whatever  was  beautiful,  or  touching,  or 
sublime  in  the  moral  maxims  of  his  country, 
shone  with  a  yet  higher  beauty,  pathos, 
and  sublimity  in  his  large  intelligence,  and 
came  forth  from  him  in  more  living  and 
perfect  form  than  it  had  yet  known.  In 
this  sense  Jesus  was  a  rabbi  among  rabbis; 
the  religious  spirit  of  the  old  Dispensation 
culminated  in  him.     He  was  both  its  sub- 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  143 

jective  and  objective  fulfillment,  in  whom 
at  once  its  genius  was  consummated  and 
its  historical  function  done  away.  And 
this  Jesus,  at  once  the  greatest  among 
Jews  and  the  finisher  of  Judaism — the 
Messiah — is  the  Jesus  represented  to  us 
by  St.  Matthew.  This  is  the  image  which 
the  Gospel — not  merely  in  parts  but  as  a 
whole,  not  in  its  discourses  merely  but  in 
its  narrative  also — constantly  brings  before 
us.  This  personality  lives  throughout  its 
pages,  binding  them  into  a  unity,  anima- 
ting them  as  a  whole;  and  it  is  impossible 
that  such  a  consistent  picture  could  have 
been  the  result  if  the  Gospel  had  been, 
as  supposed,  a  mere  mass  of  gradually- 
accumulating  tradition. 

The  evidence  for  the  unity  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  St.  Mark  as  it  now  stands,  is,  if 
possible,  still  more  conclusive.     According 


144      INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

to  uniform  Patristic  tradition,*  the  force 
of  which  we  confess  impresses  us  the  more 
we  study  it,  this  Gospel  especially  repre- 
sents the  teaching  of  St.  Peter,  of  whom 
St.  Mark  was  "companion,"  "disciple," 
"interpreter."  The  Gospel,  in  its  very 
marked  characteristics,  exactly  answers  to 
this  idea.  Its  picturesque  brevity  of  style; 
the  beautiful,  affectionate  hints  that  drop 
out  here  and  there  as  to  the  looks,  and 
manner,  and  attitude  of  our  Lord;  the 
simplicity  and  minuteness  of  its  descrip- 
tive touches,  as  when  it  notes  the  color 
of  the  grass  on  which  the  multitudes  at 
the  miraculous  feast  sat  down;f  the  very 
curtness   and   inexpansiveness  of  its  dis- 

*  Papias  in  Euseb.  H.  E.,  iii,  39;  Clemens  Alex,  in 
Euseb.  H.  E.,  ii,  25;  Tertullian  Adv.  Marcion.,  ii,  5; 
Iren.  Adv.  Hser.,  iii,  10;  Euseb.  H.  E.,  v,  8,  vi,  14; 
Jerome  Cat.  Script.  EccL,  c.  8;  Ep.  ad  Hedib.,  c.  2. 

t  Chap,  vi,  39. 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  145 

courses,  which  M.  Renan  makes  a  reproach 
to  it — all  indicate  the  warm,  impulsive, 
frank-hearted  disciple,  whose  affections 
opened  so  keenly  toward  the  Lord,  and 
embraced  so  readily  his  higher  character,  , 
but  whose  intelligence  and  strength  of  will 
obviously  did  not  always  keep  pace  with 
his  affections;  whose  faculty  of  discourse, 
as  his  epistles  and  sermons  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  show,  was  not  equal  to  his 
faculty  of  practical  work  and  organization. 

II.  Our  author's  view  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  is  founded  upon  his  inability  to 
conceive  the  Son  of  Zebedee  to  be  the 
writer  of  the  long  metaphysical  discourses 
which  characterize  it.  St.  John,  according 
to  him,  probably  left  notes  behind  him; 
but  the  speculative  elaboration  and  polem- 
ical turn  of  these  notes  must  be  attributed 

10 


146      INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

to  his  scholars  at  Ephesus,  of  whose  char- 
acter and  history  we  know  so  little.  One 
thing  alone  is  certain  with  him,  that  this 
Gospel  can  not  be  accepted  as  conveying 
a  true  picture  of  our  Lord.  M.  Renan 
reiterates  his  confidence  on  this  point,  and 
suggests  the  theory  of  a  double  origin  as 
the  most  likely  explanation  of  the  double 
character  he  finds  in  it;  namely,  its  direct 
traces  of  originality  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  its  dogmatic,  reflective  tone, 
so  alien,  in  his  estimation,  from  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  first  disciples.  It 
is  sufficient  to  say,  in  answer  to  all  this, 
that  the  double  character  which  M.  Renan 
attributes  to  the  fourth  Gospel  is,  like 
many  other  things  in  his  volume,  merely 
the  creation  of  his  own  critical  fancy.  To 
other  minds,  and  according  to  the  almost 
uniform    testimony    of    Biblical    scholars, 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  147 

there  is  nothing  inconsistent  in  the  evident 
originality  of  the  narrative  of  the  fourth 
Gospel,  which  gives  to  it  such  a  special 
historical  value,  and  its  prevailing  dogmatic 
tone.  The  whole  Gospel,  with  the  excep- 
tion perhaps  of  the  twenty-first  chapter, 
and  two  isolated  portions*  which  have 
always  been  regarded  as  of  doubtful  au- 
thenticity, is  plainly  the  production  of  one 
mind.  The  same  spirit  and  style  every- 
where pervade  its  didactic  and  narrative 
parts.  These  can  not  be  separated  and 
attributed  to  diverse  authorship  on  any 
fair  principle  of  literary  interpretation.  So 
far  as  it  is  possible  to  make  sure  of  the 
unity  of  any  composition  by  the  identity 
of  its  spirit  and  structure  throughout — 
and  criticism  always  acknowledges  the 
force  of  this  evidence — it  is  possible   to 

^  Chap,  vi,  53;  viii,  1-12. 


148      INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

certify  the  unity  which  marks  the  suc- 
cessive chapters  of  the  fourth  Gospel  with 
almost  a  monotone  of  sentiment  and  of 
language.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  we  may 
well  set  the  judgment  of  Catholic  scholar- 
ship against  mere  arbitrary  opinionative- 
ness.  The  majority  even  of  skeptical 
theologians  have  united  in  affirming  the 
unity  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  They  may 
deny  its  apostolic  authorship,  but  they 
acknowledge  the  irresistible  evidence  fur- 
nished by  the  Gospel  itself  of  its  having 
proceeded  from  a  single  mind  of  very 
marked  individuality. 

But  what  have  we  to  say  to  the  diversity 
between  this  Gospel  and  the  synoptical 
Gospels,  especially  that  of  St.  Matthew, 
so  sharply  drawn  out  by  M.  Renan?  The 
two  Gospels  are  not  merely  diverse  in 
his  view,  but  they  are  conflicting — the  one 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  149 

excludes  the  other.  Either  St.  Matthew 
must  be  wrong  or  St.  John  must  be  wrong, 
he  says,  in  the  picture  which  they  convey 
of  our  Lord,  and  the  report  of  the  dis- 
courses which  they  put  into  his  mouth. 
The  discourses  of  St.  John,  we  are  told, 
have  nothing  in  common  with  the  logia 
of  St.  Matthew  in  tone,  style,  or  doctrine. 
If  Jesus  spoke  as  represented  by  the  latter, 
he  can  not  have  spoken  as  represented  by 
the  former.  And  between  the  two  author- 
ities, from  our  author's  estimate,  no  critic 
can  or  will  hesitate.  He  will  recosfnize 
the  Jesus  of  the  first  Gospel  as  the  true 
Jesus,  and  the  charming  sentences  which 
fell  from  him  on  the  Mount,  and  on  the 
banks  of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  as  his 
genuine  utterances. 

Now,  the  contrast  between  the  first  and 
fourth  Gospel,  or  between  the  latter  and 


Ie50  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

the  synoptics  generally,  has  been  always 
recognized.  It  has  been  a  subject  of  de- 
vout study  in  the  Church  from  the  days 
of  Clemens  Alexandrinus.  Both  Clemens 
and  Origen  after  him  give  a  definite  and, 
in  some  respects,  beautiful  explanation  of 
the  difference.*  Eusebius  also,  from  a 
separate  point  of  view,  endeavors  to  ex- 

*  Clemens,  in  a  passage  cited  by  Eusebius — H.  E.,  vi, 
14 — descriptive  of  the  origin  of  the  Gospels  generally, 
says:  "That  when  John  saw  in  the  other  Gospels  out- 
ward or  corporeal  matters — ra  aufiaTiKa — he  composed  a 
spiritual  Gospel  —  Trvev/jaTiKov  iroLfjoat  evay'y£?uov.^'  The 
statement  of  Origen — Com.  in  Johan. — is  more  to  the 
point:  "We  may  venture  then  to  say  that  the  first  fruit 
of  all  the  Scriptures  is  the  Gospels,  and  of  the  Gospels 
the  first  fruit  is  that  according  to  St.  John,  whose  mean- 
ing no  one  can  grasp  unless  he  have  leaned  on  Jesus' 
bosom,  or  have  received  from  Jesus  Mary,  and  she  become 
his  own  mother." 

In  referring  to  these  explanations  we  do  not  mean  to 
imply  any  opinion  as  to  their  accuracy  or  value.  Whether 
we   think  them  to  the  point  or  not,  both  passages  are 


INTEGRITY  OF  TUB  GOSPELS.  151 

plain  it.  The  subject  is  one  which  Chris- 
tian scholars  have  never  shrunk  from  dis- 
cussing, and  which  yields,  w^hen  fairly  and 
fully  examined,  a  testimony  to  the  exalted 
character  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ  rather 
than  an  embarrassment  in  the  reception 
of  it. 

There  is,  indeed,   a^  striking   difference 

interesting  in  themselves,  and  serve  very  fitly  to  show  the 
ancient  interest  of  the  Church  in  the  peculiar  character 
of  St.  John's  Gospel.  We  may  take  this  opportunity  of 
stating  that  it  has  been  our  aim  throughout  the  text  to 
keep  clear  of  any  questions  as  to  the  Gospels  save  those 
which  M.  Renan  forces  upon  us.  We  could  not  otherwise 
have  kept  to  our  special  task,  or  accomplished  it  within 
any  due  limits — so  many  points  arise  on  all  sides  for  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  relative  origin  and  character  of  the 
Gospels.  Scarcely  any  province  of  critical  inquiry  pre- 
sents more  conflicting  theories.  Those  who  deny  the 
supplementary  theory  of  the  origin  of  St.  John's  Gospel — 
concluding  that  the  apostle  had  never  seen  any  of  the 
other  Gospels — pay  little  deference  of  course  to  such 
statements  as  those  of  Clemens  and  Origen.     It  appears 


152  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

between  the  first  and  the  fourth  Gospels, 
but  there  is  no  contradiction.  Between 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  such  argu- 
ments as  fill  the  sixth  chapter  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  the  touching  dis- 
courses of  our  Lord  in  the  latter  chapters 
of  the  same  Gospel,  there  is  a  wide  dis- 
tinction, but  there  is  no  discrepancy.  St. 
John  represents  a  special  side  of  our  Lord's 

to  us,  however,  that  it  is  impossible  to  disregard  these 
statements  altogether,  especially  while  resting  so  confi- 
dently, as  we  do,  on  the  testimony  of  the  same  fathers 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  Gospels.  We  regret,  therefore, 
to  notice  that,  in  the  last  edition  of  his  Greek  Testament, 
Dean  Alford  goes  the  length  of  repudiating  a  Hebrew 
original  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  in  the  face  of  evidence 
which,  with  all  possible  deductions,  seems  irresistible ;  and 
that  he  is  even  disposed  to  treat  slightly  the  unvarying 
Patristic  traditions  as  to  the  connection  of  St.  Peter  with 
the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark.  If  the  testimony  of  the  fathers 
is  good  for  any  thing  at  all,  this  connection  is  as  certain 
as  any  historical  fact  can  be,  and  not  less  important  than 
it  is  certain. 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  153 

divine  character  and  doctrine  which  St. 
Matthew  has  only  shghtly  touched.  What- 
ever view  we  take  of  the  origin  of  the 
fourth  Gospelj  it  w^as  obviously  written  in 
circumstances  wholly  different  from  those 
in  w^hich  St.  Matthew  composed  his  Gos- 
pel. New  tendencies  had  sprung  up  in 
the  Church — new  forms  of  error  had  be- 
gun to  show  themselves.  The  Christian 
consciousness  had  developed  and  matured, 
and  was  able  both  to  enter  more  fully  into 
the  mind  of  Christ,  and  to  recall  more 
fully  the  expression  of  that  mind  given 
in  the  days  of  his  flesh.  The  Spirit  was 
accomplishing  his  promised  mission  to 
"  guide "  the  apostolic  mind  "  into  all 
truth."  And  so,  from  the  lessons  of  this 
higher  and  more  mature  consciousness  of 
what  Christ  was,  and  of  many  things 
that  he  spoke,  arose  the  fourth  Gospel — 


154  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

very  distinct  in  character  from  the  others, 
bringing  into  clearer  view  certain  specially 
divine  aspects  of  Christ's  doctrine,  but  no 
where  opposing  the  teaching  of  the  synop- 
tics; unfolding  and  explaining  that  teach- 
ing, but  in  no  respect  contradicting  it. 
M.  Renan,  notwithstanding  all  he  says  on 
the  subject,  does  not  venture  to  point  out 
any  contradictions.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  and  the  other  Gospels 
are  too  much  apart  to  contradict  each 
other.  Their  very  diversity  saves  them 
from  opposition.  Their  mode  of  composi- 
tion, their  purpose,  their  style  are  distinct. 
The  synoptics  are  in  the  main  merely 
historical  and  descriptive.  St.  John  is 
dogmatic  as  well  as  historical.  He  has 
evidently  the  conscious  purpose  through- 
out of  representing  our  Lord  in  his  more 
divine  relations — as  he  appeared  not  merely 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  155 

to  the  more  limited  Jewish  apprehension, 
but  to  the  fuUj-informed  and  comprehen- 
sive Christian  conception — ptosis. 

And  there  is  nothing  surprising  in  the 
fact  that  so  manifold  and  sublime  a  per- 
sonality as  our  Lord's  should  thus  appear 
to  different  minds  so  different,  or  that  his 
teaching  should  be  capable  of  being  exhib- 
ited with  equal  truth  in  two  such  diverse 
forms.  Even  granting  Jesus  to  have  only 
been  such  a  character  as  M.  Renan  allows 
him  to  have  been — a  man  in  whom  the 
consciousness  of  the  divine  rose  to  a  pitch 
of  unexampled  exaltation — there  is  really 
nothing  unlikely  in  this.  Rather  it  is 
extremely  likely  that  such  a  character 
in  such  circumstances  should  appear  in 
one  case  merely  as  the  Galilean  prophet 
and  teacher  of  a  Divine  morality;  in  the 
other  as  a  Divine   thinker  and  doctor  in 


156  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

the  highest  sense.  Granting  for  a  moment 
the  justice  of  the  picture,  fanciful  as  it 
really  is,  which  describes  him  as  a  beau- 
tiful Galilean  youth,  inspired  by  a  radiant 
spiritual  intelligence,  seeking  vent  in  the 
most  exquisite  ethical  aphorisms,  is  it  at 
all  strange  that  the  same  youth  should  be- 
come a  teacher  of  the  highest  spiritual  phi- 
losophy, dogmatic  or  polemical,  as  suited 
his  subject  and  audience?  Surely  not. 
M.  Renan  allows  that  the  ideas  of  Jesus 
underwent  a  change  as  he  advanced  in 
his  career;  that  he  became  less  simple, 
less  expository — more  vehement,  more  de- 
nunciatory. Is  it  more  inconsistent  with 
real  unity  of  character  that  he  should 
at  one  time  have  been  more  the  mere 
preacher  on  the  Mount,  at  another  time 
more  the  lofty  theologian,  at  another  time 
the    meditative    thinker,    reveling    in    the 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  157 

consciousness  of  his  supreme  relation  with 
the  Father,  and  from  the  hight  of  that 
supreme  communion  making  known  its 
mysteries  to  his  assembled  disciples,  be- 
fore they  should  be  separated  from  his 
earthly  presence?  M.  Renan  can  not  con- 
ceive the  moral  aphorisms  of  St.  Matthew 
and  the  metaphysics  of  St.  John  to  proceed 
from  the  same  mind.  But  may  not  this 
be  as  much  owing  to  his  own  narrowness 
of  conception  as  to  any  thing  inconceivable 
in  the  combination  itself?  On  the  con- 
trary, it  has  appeared  to  the  Church,  and 
to  Biblical  scholars  in  general,  that  there 
is  not  only  nothing  unintelligible  in  such  a 
combination,  but  that  in  truth  the  wonder 
would  have  been  if  so  sublime  a  person- 
ality had  not  been  presented  to  us  in  two 
such  diverse  but  no  where  contradictory 
lights. 


158      INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

But  we  must  further  maintain  that  not 
only  is  there  no  contradiction  in  the  testi- 
mony of  the  two  evangelists,  but  that  a 
genuine  criticism  is  every-where  able  to 
elicit  a  clear  harmony  and  even  identity  in 
their  views.  Their  representations  are  not 
commensurate,  but  they  touch  and  unite 
at  different  jjoints.  The  Jesus  of  St.  John 
claims  more  uniformly  a  Divine  dignity, 
surrounds  himself  more  obviously  with  a 
Divine  light,  making  himself  equal  with 
the  Father  in  power  and  glory;  but  no 
less  does  the  Jesus  of  St.  Matthew  claim 
and  accept  Divine  homage,  and  exercise 
Divine  prerogatives.  He  forgives  sin;* 
he  accepts  worship  ;f  he  elicits  from  St. 
Peter  the  declaration  that  he  is  the  Son 
of  God  J — no  mere  prophet  or  teacher, 
but  the  Son  of  God  in  a  sense  in  which 

*  Matt,  ix,  2.      t  Matt,  xiv,  33.      J  Matt,  xvi,  15,  16. 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  159 

no  prophet  was  before  him.  In  a  well- 
known  passage,*  he  declares  that  "  all 
things  are  delivered  to  him  of  the  Father; 
and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the 
Eather ;  neither  knoweth  any  man  the 
Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomso- 
ever the  Son  will  reveal  him."  Such 
statements  breathe  the  very  spirit  which 
pervades  St.  John ;  they  are  compara- 
tively isolated,  but  they  are  there,  clear 
and  emphatic.  It  is  impossible  to  empty 
such  statements  of  dogmatic  import  and 
not  to  recognize  that  they  are  meant  to 
carry  on  the  mind,  as  it  were,  from  the 
mere  idea  of  a  Galilean  teacher  to  that 
of  a  Divine  person — from  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  to  the  prologue  of  the  fourth 
Gospel.  This  is  surely  the  natural  view 
of  the  question,  even  as  a  mere  literary 

*  Matt,  xi,  27. 


160  INTEGBITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

question.  Two  documents  survive,  which 
profess  to  represent  the  public  career  of 
one  who,  by  his  spiritual  greatness,  has 
influenced  the  world  more  than  any  other 
person  who  ever  lived.  One  of  these 
documents  represents  his  teaching  in  its 
more  simple  elements,  in  its  popular  moral 
relations,  so  to  speak;  the  other  represents 
his  teaching  in  its  higher  meanings,  its 
more  theological  relations.  The  teaching 
in  the  one  case  does  not  contradict  that 
in  the  other ;  it  only  supplements  and 
crowns  it.  In  its  simpler  elements,  as 
contained  in  the  earlier  document,  there 
is  not  the  same  uniform  assertion  of  the 
higher  theological  truth,  but  there  are 
every-where  the  indications  of  it,  pointing 
the  mind  forward  to  that  higher  truth. 
Is  not  this  fact  what  we  might  expect; 
and  does  not  the  recognition  of  Jesus  as 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  161 

at  once  the  Messiah  and  the  Son  of  God, 
as  at  once  the  Son  of  man  and  equal  with 
the  Father,  harmonize  with  the  literary 
facts  and  explain  them;  while  no  other 
supposition  does  this,  but  leaves  both  the 
facts  unexplained,  and  the  personality  or 
character  unsolved  ? 

III.  But  there  is  still  a  further  point 
in  M.  Renan's  critical  estimate  of  the  Gos- 
pels that  claims  special  notice.  The  right 
view  of  the  Gospels,  he  tells  us,  is  that 
of  legendary  biographies.  The  image  of 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  constantly  occurs  to 
him  as  a  historical  phenomenon  similar 
to  our  Lord;  and  the  biographies  of  the 
saint  and  others  are  suggested  as  parallels 
to  the  Gospels.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  statements,  we  venture  to 
say,  that  has   ever   been   made   even   in 


162  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

the  literature  of  unbelief,  and  the  very 
piquancy  of  its  dogmatism  is  apt  to  im- 
pose upon  the  popular  reader.  It  excites 
his  imagination — it  takes  even  his  intellect 
by  surprise.  What  a  natural  idea!  he  is 
apt  to  think.  His  mind  feels  a  species  of 
satisfaction  in  being  furnished  with  such  a 
novel  explanation  of  the  Gospels.  They 
form  no  longer  an  exceptionable,  unac- 
countable literature;  they  take  their  place 
as  ordinary  phenomena  in  literary  history. 
The  mythical  theory  has  been  proved  to 
be  unsatisfactory.  It  throws  the  whole 
task  of  the  creation  of  the  Gospel  upon 
the  Messianic  imagination  of  the  first  dis- 
ciples— an  utterly  inadequate  cause.  Ac- 
cording to  our  author,  the  disciples  were 
incapable  of  comprehending  the  Divine 
original  presented  to  them.  So  far  as 
they  could,  they  have  marred  the  picture 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  1G3 

rather  than  made  it.  The  personality  of 
Jesus  was  a  reality,  just  as  that  of  St. 
Francis  was,  but  the  records  of  his  life 
have  become  mixed  with  fabulous  tradi- 
tions, like  those  of  the  medieval  saint. 
This  was  only  inevitable.  Jesus  would 
not  only  have  been  an  extraordinary  but 
a  wholly  unexampled  character  if  such 
legendary  matter  had  not  gathered  around 
his  life.  The  life  of  Alexander  had  talready 
become  inextricably  mixed  up  with  legend 
before  the  death  of  his  companions  in  arms. 
The  legend  of  St.  Francis  had  begun  before 
his  own  death. 

But  there  is  a  simple  answer  to  all  this 
pleasant  inventiveness.  There  is  really  no 
literary  parallel  between  the  Gospels  and 
the  lives  of  the  saints.  Save  in  so  far  as 
both  present  a  combination  of  miraculous 
and  ordinary  incident,  they  are  in  every 


164  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

respect  different.     The  lives  of  the  saints 
are  of  two  classes:   sometimes — as  in  the 
lives  of  the  patron  saint  of  England  and 
of  the   four   great   virgin-martyrs    of   the 
Roman    Catholic    Church — the    matter   is 
entirely  legendary,  and  mostly  miraculous; 
in  other  cases — as  in  that  of  the  lives  of 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  even  more  char- 
acteristically perhaps  of  St.  Bernard — the 
legendary-miraculous    element   is    distinct, 
and  capable  of  being  separated  from  the 
intelligible  outline  of  undeniable  facts  and 
features  composing  the  real  lives  of  these 
hero-saints.     Nay,   it   may   be    said   that, 
in  almost  every  case,  the  addition  of  the 
legendary -miraculous  matter  can  be  traced 
as  an  after-growth — the  real  life  of  the 
saint   standing    clear   apart   from    it,    and 
being  found  described  without  miraculous 
admixture   in   some   earlier   record.      For 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  165 

example,  of  the  very  St.  Francis  to  whom 
M.  Renan  so  often  refers  we  possess  three 
lives — two  of  them  written  by  cotempo- 
raries,*  and  one  of  them,  the  most  famous, 
by  Bonaventura,  in  the  generation  imme- 
diately following.  The  process  of  miracu- 
lous addition  to  the  incidents  of  St.  Fran- 
cis's life  can  be  plainly  noted  in  these 
almost  coeval  biographies.  Thomas  of 
Celano,  his  first  biographer,  ascribes  to 
him  no  wonders  except  the  cure  of  sick- 
ness. The  natural  features  of  the  saint 
appear  sufficiently  marvelous,  yet  suffi- 
ciently intelligible.  But  gradually  miracu- 
lous accretions  gather  round  his  life.  In 
the  biography  by  Bonaventura  it  is  re- 
corded that  the  intercession  of  the  saint 
was    successful    in    restoring    sight    to    a 

*  Thomas  de  Celano,  and  the  "Tres  Socii,"  or  three 
associates  of  the  saints. 


166  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

blind  man.  This  would  be  almost  cotem- 
poraiy  testimony.  But  the  BoUandist 
editors  have  discovered  that  the  passage 
containing  this  alleged  miracle  was  not 
the  production  of  Bonaventura  himself, 
but  was  inserted  in  the  work  after  his 
death.  Thus  we  see  the  formation  of  the 
legendary-miraculous  matter  in  the  life  of 
St.  Francis,  and  at  the  same  time  see  the 
life  standing  quite  apart  from  it.  And  the 
very  same  thing  is  true  of  St.  Francis's 
great  cotemporary  —  St.  Dominic.  His 
later  biographies  are  crowded  with  mira- 
cles; but  his  first  biographer  declares  that 
the  miraculous  stories  he  had  heard  were 
so  conflicting  that  he  did  not  venture  to 
record  them. 

It  is  to  the  latter  class  of  the  lives  of 
the  saints,  of  course,  that  M.  Renan  refers 
in  drawing  a   comparison   between   them 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  167 

and  the  Gospels.  But  who  does  not, 
even  in  our  brief  statement,  recognize 
the  broad  distinction  between  the  two? 
St.  Francis,  St.  Bernard,  or  St.  Dominic 
are  not  only  intelligible,  but  they  are  dis- 
tinctly-marked historical  characters,  quite 
apart  from  any  of  the  legendary  miracles 
attributed  to  them.  There  are  lives  of 
them  extant  in  which  the  miraculous  ele- 
ment holds  no  place,  or  at  least  a  place 
so  unimportant  and  accidental  that  it  may 
be  dropped  out,  and  the  narrative  be  all 
the  more  consistent  and  intelligible.  But 
in  the  Gospels  the  miracle  is  not  merely  a 
part  of  the  narrative — ^it  is  the  main  nar- 
rative. The  miraculous  elements  of  our 
Lord's  life  are  the  characteristic  elements; 
his  life  is  a  supernatural  life  throughout, 
and  so  the  Gospels  begin  with  miracles 
and  end  with  miracles.     The  supernatural 


168  INTEaRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

is  the  cohesive  thread  of  the  narrative, 
and  if  dropped  out  the  life  itself  would 
disappear.  M.  Renan  does  not  dare  to 
class  the  Gospels  with  such  mere  fables 
as  the  traditionary  lives  of  St.  George, 
or  St.  Christopher,  or  St.  Ursula,  or  St. 
Catherine ;  and  yet  the  life  of  our  Lord 
would  be  almost  as  blank  as  the  lives 
of  these  saints  with  the  miraculous  ele- 
ments withdrawn  from  it.  The  parallel 
suggested  by  him,  therefore,  is  utterly 
inapplicable.  The  legendary  biographies 
of  the  saints  form  a  literature  which,  if 
not  without  its  puzzles  to  the  historical 
student,  is  yet  sufficiently  intelligible.  It 
sprang  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  legend  and 
of  miraculous  exaggeration.  The  beliefs 
to  which  it  appealed  were  ready  made, 
and  so  importunate  as  to  demand  material 
to  feed  upon.     There  is  nothing  analogous 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  169 

in  the  character  or  origin  of  the  Gospels. 
The  supernatural  life  which  they  picture 
was  not  a  life  in  harmony  with  predom- 
inant Jewish  interests,  or  even  prevailing 
Jewish  beliefs  and  sympathies.  Unlike 
the  medieval  miracles,  the  miracles  of 
the  Gospels  were  not  wrought  in  support 
of  a  powerful  Church  or  sect.  They  were 
wrought,  on  the  contrary,  in  attestation 
of  a  mission  repudiated  and  despised  by 
the  Jewish  power,  Pharisee  and  Sadducee 
alike.  All,  in  short,  that  serves  to  explain 
the  legendary-miraculous  hterature  of  the 
middle  ages  is  wanting  in  the  case  of 
the  evangelical  miracles;  and  it  is  only 
an  imagination  such  as  M.  Renan's  that 
could  possibly  suppose  the  Gospels  satis- 
factorily accounted  for  by  being  compared 
to  the  lives  of  the  saints.  A  higher 
historical    imagination  —  a    more    compre- 


170  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

hensive  critical  intellect,  looking  merely 
at  the  literary  facts — must  at  once  reject 
such  a  comparison  as  unfounded  and  un- 
worthy. 


V. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ACCORDING  TO 
M.  RENAN. 

We  have  hitherto  been  employed  in 
exposing  the  philosophical  and  critical 
assumptions  which  lie  at  the  basis  of 
M.  Kenan's  book.  We  now  approach  the 
substance  of  the  book  itself,  which  we 
shall  treatj  as  far  as  is  necessary,  in  two 
lectures.  Nor  is  there  any  disproportion 
in  this  mode  of  treatment,  for  the  poison 
of  the  book  really  lies  in  those  assump- 
tions with  which  we  have  been  dealing; 
and  clearly  to  make  them  understood  is  to 
show  in  the  best  manner  how  unfounded 
the  book  is,  and  how  absurd  and  untenable 
are  its  historical  pretensions.     For  if  the 

171 


172  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Christian  is  not  warranted  to  set  out  from 
the  assumption  of  the   supernatural,   still 
less  surely  can  the  skeptic  be  entitled  to 
start   from   the    assumption  of  its    denial 
and   impossibility.     The   Christian  has  at 
least  the  assenting  tradition  of  Christen- 
dom, the   common  faith  of  humanity,   on 
his  side.     What  has  the  Positivist  on  his 
side?     The   conclusions   of  a  partial  and 
polemical  philosophy—conclusions  of  yes- 
terday, which,  if  accepted  by  one  or  two 
distinguished  men  and  a  herd  of  imitators, 
have  not  won  the  assent  of  a  single  really- 
great  mind,  in  which  the  springs  of  faith 
lie  deep  beside  the  wells  of  science — at 
once   acute   and   comprehensive,   spiritual 
and  logical.     To  send  abroad  to  the  world 
a  "Life  of  Jesus"  founded  on  the  assump- 
tions of  such  a  philosophy,  without  a  single 
word  in  vindication  of  them,  argues  a  con- 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  173 

fidence  quite  as  remarkable  as  the  most 
absolute  faith,  on  which  the  author  looks 
with  pity.  Nor  is  the  criticism  of  the 
volume  more  free  from  assumption  than 
its  philosophy  —  more  weighty  in  itself, 
or  better  sustained.  While  claiming  an 
eminently-historical  character,  it  has  really 
no  historical  value.  It  is  a  mere  abuse  of 
language  to  term  such  criticism  scientific. 
To  call  the  Gospels  legendary  narratives, 
like  the  lives  of  the  medieval  saints,  and 
to  suppose,  apart  from  all  deeper  ques- 
tions, that  they  are  thereby  sufficiently 
explained  as  mere  literary  jDhenomena, 
implies  a  wonderful  insensibility  or  a 
wonderful  credulity. 

But  let  us  now  turn  to  the  life  which 
M.  Renan  presents  us,  and  test  his  labors 
by  their  result.     Is  it  a  consistent,  intel- 


174  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ligible  life  which  he  has  drawn?  Does 
it  harmonize  with  his  conclusions  and  the 
admitted  facts  of  the  case?  The  aim  of 
every  biographer  of  Jesus  must  be  to 
explain  the  marvelous  ideal  which  the 
Gospels  bring  before  him.  It  is  this 
ideal  which  fastens  the  gaze  of  skepticism 
as  well  as  the  eye  of  faith.  It  has  con- 
fessedly fascinated  and  "  charmed "  our 
author;  he  gives  voice  to  his  admiration 
in  many  places,  and  can  not  sufficiently 
utter  the  moral  delight  with  which  it  fills 
him.  How  has  he  succeededj  then,  in 
drawing  this  ideal  on  the  principles  from 
which  he  starts?  Has  it  any  vraisem- 
hlance,  artistically,  morally,  or  historically? 
Is  it  intelligible  on  any  of  the  ordinary 
principles  on  which  we  interpret  the  great 
phenomena  of  history  and  of  life?  These 
are  fair  questions  to  ask;  they  touch  the 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  175 

center  of  all  historical  treatment  of  the 
Gospels;  for  who  shall  define  the  intimate 
association  in  every  case  between  our  view 
of  the  Gospels  and  of  the  Christ  which 
they  represent?  The  picture  fits  the 
frame  and  the  frame  the  picture.  They 
shed  a  reflected  glory  on  one  another. 
It  is  the  divine  perfection  of  the  ideal 
which  more  than  all  stamps  a  divine  com- 
pleteness and  authority  upon  the  several 
sources  of  its  expression.  This  is  the 
higher  light  which  lightens  every  Chris- 
tian intelligence,  and  around  which  all 
the  phenomena  of  the  evangelical  history 
fall  into  harmony  and  receive  their  ex- 
planation. What  does  M.  Renan  make 
of  this  ideal?  How  does  his  life  har- 
monize with  his  materials,  with  itself, 
with  the  known  facts  of  history?  We 
shall  devote  this  lecture  to  explanation; 


176  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  the  next  we  shall  examine  the  picture 
set  before  us. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  M.  Renan 
ignores  the  alleged  supernatural  birth  of 
our  Lord.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  calmly 
sets  aside  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels 
whenever  it  suits  him.  There  was  no 
such  birth  at  Bethlehem  as  St.  Luke 
describes.  The  notion  of  such  a  birth 
sprang  from  the  later  effort  to  connect 
Jesus  with  the  lineage  of  David — a  con- 
nection which  could  have  no  historical 
foundation,  for  the  race  of  David  had 
long  before  passed  away.  He  was  born 
at  Nazareth,  and  was  known  as  a  Naza- 
rene  all  his  life.  He  sprang  from  a  family 
in  the  middle  walks  of  life — not  rich,  yet 
not  miserably  poor — of  the  rank  of  arti- 
sans living  by  their  labor.  Our  author 
has  drawn  a  lively  picture  of  the  character 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  177 

of  such  a  family  in  the  East,  and  of  the 
supposed  circumstances  in  the  midst  of 
which  Jesus  spent  his  youth.  External 
nature,  a  singularly-beautiful  and  happy 
disposition,  the  floating  moralisms  and 
wide -spread,  deeply -exciting  Messianic 
dreams  of  his  country,  these  are  the 
influences  which  made  Jesus  what  he 
was  —  the  causes  out  of  which  Chris- 
tianity sprang.  All  who  have  read  M. 
Renan's  volume  will  admit  the  fairness 
of  this  statement.  His  explanations  no 
where  go  beyond  these  resources.  He 
speaks,  indeed,  in  his  Introduction,  of 
Philo,  and  calls  him  the  elder  brother 
of  Jesus;  he  speaks  of  the  "excellent 
maxims  of  the  love  of  God,  of  charity, 
of  rest  in  God,"  in  the  writings  of  the 
illustrious    Alexandrian    thinker,*    which 

^  Page  35. 
12 


178  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

find  their  eclio  in  the  Gospel;  but  he  does 
not  attempt  to  connect  Jesus  with  Philo, 
or  to  attribute  any  influence  to  the  latter 
over  the  former.  He  admits,  on  the  con- 
trary— what,  indeed,  he  could  not  help 
admitting  —  that  Philo  remained  utterly 
unknown  to  Jesus,  as  Jesus  probably  did 
to  Philo,  although  the  latter  survived  the 
date  of  the  crucifixion  about  twenty  years. 
He  speaks  also  of  the  Talmud,  and  in 
some  places  ascribes  to  it,  or  rather  to 
the  oral  teaching  out  of  which  it  grew— 
for  the  date  of  the  Talmud,  he  confesses, 
can  not  be  higher  than  the  year  200 — 
a  definite  influence  on  the  moral  educa- 
tion of  Jesus,  "The  true  notion  of  the 
circumstances  in  which  Jesus  was  pro- 
duced must  be  sought,"  he  says,  "in  this 
hkarre  compilation,  where  the  most  pre- 
cious   truths    are    mixed    with    the    most 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  179 

insignificant  scholasticism."*  But  he  re- 
joices at  the  same  time  that  Jesus  was 
happily  beyond  the  circle  of  the  Pharisaic 
scholasticism,  which  formed  the  germ  of 
the  Talmud.  He  does  not,  in  short,  at- 
tempt to  connect  Jesus  with  any  school 
of  thought  or  religious  instruction.  The 
Essenes,  the  Pharisees,  the  Sadducees, 
were  alike  unknown  to  him  during  the 
period  of  his  youthful  education  in  Gali- 
lee. Possibly  the  principles  of  Ilillel, 
who  fifty  years  before  had  delivered 
aphorisms  very  like  his  own,  were  not 
unknown  to  him.  He  leaves  this  to  be 
inferred.  He  even  says,  with  his  char- 
acteristic confidence,  that  Hillel  was  the 
true  teacher  of  Jesus  f — a  statement  for 
which  there  is  not  the  slightest  historical 
foundation. 

*  Introd.  xii.  t  Page  35. 


180  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

What,  then,  is  his  explanation  of  Chris- 
tianity ?  Virtually  this :  It  sprang  up 
out  of  the  bosom  of  Jewish  culture  in 
Galilee.  Jesus  was  a  son  of  the  Galilean 
soil — where,  according  to  M.  Renan,  he 
was  born  and  nurtured — nothing  more. 
It  is  a  glowing  romance,  dazzling  with 
imaginary  colors,  that  he  draws.  Let  us 
look  at  it.  Christianity,  he  says,  could 
only  have  sprung  out  of  this  northern 
region  of  Palestine.  Its  natural  splendors 
are  all  in  harmony  with  the  joyous  spirit 
of  the  infancy  of  the  Gospel. 

"With  a  less  brilliant  development  in 
one  sense  than  Jerusalem,  Galilee  was 
yet  far  more  fertile  in  real  greatness — 
the  most  living  works  of  the  Jewish 
people  had  always  come  from  it.  Jeru- 
salem, on  the  contrary,  was  characterized 
by  a  complete  absence  of  the  sentiment 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  181 

of  nature;  a  spirit,  dry,  narrow,  and  stern, 
had  left  upon  all  its  features  an  impress 
sublime  but  sad,  arid  and  repulsive.  With 
its  solemn  doctors,  its  insipid  canonists, 
its  atrabilious  hypocrites,  Jerusalem  would 
never  have  conquered  humanity.  The 
North  alone  has  given  to  the  world  the 
naive  Shulamite,  the  humble  Canaanite, 
the  penitent  Magdalen,  the  good  foster- 
father  Joseph,  the  Virgin  Mary  —  the 
North  alone  has  made  Christianity.  Je- 
rusalem, on  the  contrary,  was  the  true 
home  of  the  obstinate  Judaism  which, 
founded  by  the  Pharisees  and  fixed  by 
the  Talmud,  has  crossed  the  Middle  Age, 
and  survived  even  to  our  own  time.  A 
ravishing  nature  contributed  to  form  the 
less  austere,  less  bitterly  monotheistic 
spirit,  so  to  speak,  which  gave  a  charmx- 
ing  and  idyllic  impress  to  all  the  dreams 


182  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  Galilee."*  The  country  around  Jeru- 
salem, he  adds,  is  perhaps  the  saddest  in 
the  world,  while  the  North  is  beautifully 
green,  umbrageous,  and  smiling;  "the  true 
country  of  the  Canticles,  of  the  Songs  of 
the  Beloved,"  where  flowers  and  fruits 
abound,  and  where  "the  voice  of  the 
turtle"  and  the  "singing  of  birds"  is 
heard  ;f  a  country  of  lilies,  and  fig-trees, 
and  vines,  where  the  wine  is  excellent, 
and  where  they  drink  a  good  deal  of  it. 

*  Page  64. 

f  "Galilee,  on  the  contrary,  was  a  country  verdant, 
shaded,  smiling — the  true  country  of  the  Canticles,  of 
the  Songs  of  the  Beloved.  During  the  two  months  of 
March  and  April  the  country  is  a  bed  of  flowers,  with 
a  blending  of  incomparable  colors.  The  animals  are 
small,  but  of  great  gentleness.  Turtles,  delicate  and 
sprightly — birds  so  light  that  they  rest  on  the  bushes 
without  causing  them  to  bend — crested  larks  so  gentle 
that  they  nearly  cast  themselves  under  the  feet  of  the 
traveler — small   fishes   in   the   streams,  whose   eyes   are 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  183 

It  is  astonishing  with  what  elaborate 
delicacies  of  expression  our  author  has 
wrought  up  his  picture  of  Galilean  scen- 
ery— a  picture  with  charming  touches  here 
and  there,  but  also  somewhat  marred  by 
that  overdone  coloring  and  artificial  neat- 
ness which  so  often  palls  in  French  art. 

Such  was  the  cradle  of  Christianity; 
and  the  whole  history  of  the  infant  Gospel, 
in  conformity  with  the  character  of  its 
origin,  was  a  "kind  of  delicious  pastoral. 

bright  and  soft — grave  and  modest  storks  in  the  air, 
destitute  of  all  fear,  allowing  themselves  to  be  approached 
so  near  by  man  that  they  seem  to  call  him.  In  no  other 
country  in  the  world  are  the  mountains  arranged  with 
more  harmony,  or  do  they  inspire  more  elevated  thoughts. 
Jesus  seems  especially  to  have  loved  them.  The  most 
important  acts  of  his  divine  career  happened  on  these 
mountains;  it  was  there  that  he  was  most  inspired;  it 
was  there  that  he  had  secret  intercourse  with  the  ancient 
prophets;  and  there  he  showed  himself  to  his  disciples 
already  transfigured." — Pages  64,  65. 


184  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

A  Messiah  at  marriage  feasts,  the  harlot 
and  the  good  Zaccheus  invited  to  the 
banquet,  the  founders  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  a  procession  of  bridal  nymphs — 
see  what  Galilee  has  attempted,  and  what 
it  has  caused  to  be  accepted.  Greece  has 
traced  charming  tableaux  of  human  life  in 
sculpture  and  in  poetry,  but  always  with- 
out vanishing  depths  or  distant  horizons. 
Here  are  wanting  marble,  excellent  artists, 
a  language  exquisite  and  refined.  But, 
withal,  Galilee  has  created  the  sublimest 
ideal  of  the  popular  imagination;  for  the 
fate  of  humanity  is  transacted  behind  its 
idyl,  and  the  light  which  illumines  its 
tableaux  is  the  sun  of  the  kingdom  of 
God." 

So  far  as  M.  Kenan's  general  descrip- 
tions can  be  resolved  into  clear  and  definite 
affirmations,  the  two  main  sources  of  the 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  185 

evangelical  doctrine,  according  to  him, 
were  the  moral  aphorisms  of  Judaism, 
and  the  Messianic  ideas  then  every-where 
prevalent. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  a  happy 
adaptation  of  truths  which  were  already 
familiar  in  the  synagogue.  They  acquire 
a  tone  of  emotion  and  a  certain  poetry 
of  authority  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus;  but 
this  is  all.  The  maxims  themselves  had 
been  long  in  circulation.*  Exquisite  as 
is  the  form  which  Jesus  gave  them — and 
M.  Renan  allows  to  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  the  utmost  originality  of  form;  it 
is  "the  highest  creation  which  ever  pro- 
ceeded from  the  human  conscience,  the 
most  beautiful  code  of  the  perfect  life  ever 
traced  by  moralist" — yet  it  possesses  no 
originality  of  substance;  it  is  capable  of 

*  Pages  81,  82. 


186  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIA^flTY. 

being    entirely    recomposed    from    ancient 
sources  * 

In  like  manner  the  Messianic  ideas,  out 
of  which  Jesus  wrought  his  conception  of 
the  "kingdom  of  God,"  the  "kingdom 
of  heaven,"  were  the  common  property 
of  all  Jews  of  the  time.  Originating  with 
the  older  prophets,  they  had  received  a 
striking  expression  in  the  book  of  Daniel 
and  the  books  of  Enoch.  The  former 
of  these  writings  especially,  to  which  the 
great  crisis  of  the  Maccabean  struggle 
gave  birth,  had  embodied  these  ideas  in 
a  more  definite  form  than  before,  and  im- 
pressed them  widely  upon  the  popular 
imagination.  M.  Renan  has  no  doubt 
about  the  origin  of  the  book  of  Daniel. 
Beyond  all  question,  it  belongs  to  the 
age    of   Antiochus    Epiphanes,   and   takes 

*  Page  84. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  187 

no  higher  rank  than  the  other  apocryphal 
books.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  dis- 
tinction of  apocryphal  and  canonical  has 
no  existence  for  him. 

These  Messianic  ideas  were,  in  his 
view,  essentially  popular.  "  They  were 
not  taught  in  any  school,  but  they  were 
in  the  air,"  and  the  soul  of  Jesus  was 
early  penetrated  by  them.  He  yielded 
himself  up  entirely  to  them,  undisturbed 
by  any  reflective  care  or  sentimental 
anxiety.  "Our  temptations,  our  doubts 
never  touched  him.  On  the  top  of  that 
Mount  of  Nazareth,  where  no  modern 
man  could  sit  without  an  unquiet,  per- 
haps frivolous  feeling  as  to  his  destiny, 
Jesus  sat  twenty  times  without  a  single 
doubt;  free  from  egotism,  the  source  of  our 
sadness,  and  which  makes  us  anxiously 
forecast  the  future,  he  thought  only  of  his 


188  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

work,  of  his  race,  of  humanity.  Those 
mountains,  that  sea,  that  azure  heaven, 
those  lofty  plains  in  the  horizon,  were 
for  him  no  melancholy  vision  of  a  soul 
which  interrogates  nature  regarding  its 
fate,  but  the  sure  symbol,  the  transparent 
shadow  of  an  invisible  world  and  of  a  new 
heaven."* 

According  to  M.  Renan,  then,  our  Lord 
was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  typ- 
ical Galilean  of  his  time.  All  the  moral 
wisdom  of  the  synagogue  was  found  in 
him,  clothed  in  better  and  more  beau- 
tiful forms ;  he  wrought  it  into  a  more 
exquisite  creation  of  art  than  any  teacher 
of  the  synagogue  had  yet  done.  All  the 
passionate  hopes  of  a  higher  kingdom  and 
glory  for  Israel,  which  fermented  in  the 
popular  Jewish  imagination,  were   his   in 

*  Pages  55,  56. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  189 

their  utmost  freedom  and  joy  fulness  of 
excitement.  And  to  these  two  sources 
may  be  traced  all  that  is  characteristic 
in  the  matter  of  his  teaching.  So  far 
he  denies  to  Christ  any  originality ;  but 
he  is  too  clear-sighted  not  to  see  that, 
notwithstanding  his  statements  about  the 
moral  axioms  of  the  synagogue,  and  the 
Messianic  dreams  of  the  people,  and  his 
elaborate  praise  of  the  glories  of  nature 
in  Galilee,  he  is  far  from  having  explained 
the  personality  and  career  of  Jesus.  He 
is  forced  into  the  confession  of  the  pro- 
found originality  of  Jesus  after  all.  The 
growth  of  a  powerful  personality  like  his 
is  not  to  be  supposed  subject  to  rigorous 
law.  ''A  lofty  notion  of  divinity,  which 
he  did  not  owe  to  Judaism,  but  which 
seems  to  have  been  entirely  the  creation 
of  his  own  great  soul,  was  in  some  manner 


190  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  principle  of  all  his  strength."  "He 
believed  himself  to  be  in  direct  relation 
with  Grod — he  believed  himself  to  be  the 
Son  of  God.  The  highest  consciousness 
of  God  which  has  ever  existed  in  the 
bosom  of  humanity  has  been  that  of 
Jesus."* 

Such  is  the  Christ  of  M.  Renans 
volume — a  moral  genius  sprung  from  the 
decaying  root  of  Judaism.  All  of  divine 
life  that  survived  in  Judaism  centered  in 
him ;  its  moral  precepts ;  its  Messianic 
hopes;  and,  touched  with  the  celestial 
fire  of  his  great  soul — kindled  into  new 
life  by  the  breath  of  the  divine  conscious- 
ness that  was  in  him  more  than  in  any 
man  before  or  since — they  became  Chris- 
tianity. Cakya-Mouni,  the  founder  of 
Buddhism,    Plato,    St.    Paul,    St.   Francis 

*  Pages  73-75. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  191 

of  Assisi,  St.  Augustine,  were  all  men 
of  the  same  spirit.  To  them,  too,  has 
it  been  given  to  manifest  the  divine  in 
this  world.  But  Jesus  is  before  all — the 
founder  not  merely  of  a  new  religion,  but 
of  the  universal  religion  of  humanity,  the 
religion  of  the  Spirit. 

This  at  least  was  the  primary  aim 
of  Jesus,  the  essential  idea  of  his  work. 
But,  like  all  other  reformers,  Jesus  was 
unable  to  carry  out  his  original  aim  in  its 
purity,  and  by  the  merely  moral  means 
which  he  himself  desired.  He  could  not 
escape  the  superstitious  excitements  and 
wild  desires  of  his  time,  which  lived  in 
the  supernatural,  and  constantly  craved 
for  its  supposed  manifestations.  The  first 
conception  which  Jesus  entertained  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  a  purely-moral  con- 
ception.    "The  kingdom  of  God  is  within 


192  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

you,"  he  said  to  those  who  were  rest- 
lessly seeking  for  external  signs  of  its 
approach.  "The  Jesus  who  has  founded 
the  true  kingdom  of  God — the  kingdom 
of  the  sweet  and  of  the  hun;ble  —  be- 
hold the  Jesus  of  the  first  time,  pure  and 
unmixed,  when  the  voice  of  his  Father 
resounded  in  his  bosom  with  perfect  har- 
mony."* 

But  erelong  we  see  a  change,  if  not  in 
his  character,  yet  in  his  mode  of  action. 
This  alleged  change  M.  Renan  is  pleased 
to  connect  with  John  the  Baptist.  There 
is  no  j)art  of  his  volume  in  which  he  has 
manifested  a  more  arbitrary  spirit  than  in 
his  descriptions  of  the  Baptist,  and  the 
relation  which  he  held  to  Jesus.  Ac- 
cording to  him,  John  was  no  forerunner 
of  Christ,  but  rather  a  rival  leader  and 

*  Page  80. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  193 

teacher,  possessing  an  earlier  authority, 
which  would  probably  have  produced  dif- 
ficulties had  not  his  arrest  and  death 
withdrawn  him  from  the  scene.  As  it 
was,  it  appears  to  have  been  during  his 
intercourse  with  the  Baptist  that  the 
views  of  Jesus  regarding  the  kingdom 
of  God  underwent  a  change.  His  preach- 
ing henceforth  became  more  formal  and 
authoritative.  His  watchword  was  hence- 
forth the  announcement  of  the  near  ap- 
proach of  the  divine  kingdom.  He  was 
no  longer  merely  a  delightful  moralist, 
aspiring  to  embody  in  lively  and  brief 
aphorisms  sublime  lessons;  he  became  a 
transcendent  revolutionist,  who  tries  to 
renew  the  world  from  its  foundation,  and 
to  establish  upon  earth  the  ideal  which  he 
has  conceived.*    Thus  the  moral  gradually 

*  Page  116,  chap,  vii, 
13 


194  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

vanished  in  the  millennial  conception  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  This  world  is  fuU 
of  evil — Satan  is  its  king.  The  good  are 
persecuted  and  oppressed.  Priests  and 
doctors  impose  on  others  what  they  do 
not  themselves  perform.  But  God  will 
yet  arise  and  revenge  his  "saints."  And 
the  day  of  recompense  is  at  hand.  It 
will  come  suddenly,  as  "a  thief  in  the 
night."  The  present  world  will  be  over- 
turned, and  all  that  is  great  in  it  laid 
low,  and  all  that  is  weak  in  it  exalted. 
"  The  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  first." 
Now,  the  good  and  evil  are  mixed  to- 
gether, like  the  wheat  and  tares  in  a  field 
of  grain;  but  the  hour  of  their  separation 
approaches,  when  each  shall  receive  their 
definite  and  everlasting  fate.  And  who 
is  to  accomplish  this  great  change?  Who 
is  to  establish  the  new  kingdom?     Jesus 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  195 

himself.  He  is  the  universal  reformer ; 
and  it  is  by  him  and  his  doings  that  God 
is  to  reign  upon  the  earth.  All  the  powers 
of  nature  are  subject  to  him  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  he  believes  that  he  can  move 
them  at  his  will.* 

The  contradiction  thus  apparent  be- 
tween the  moral  and  millenarian  doc- 
trines of  Christ  is  strangely  represented 
as  the  cause  of  his  highest  triumph.  "It 
was  just  this  contradiction  which  caused 
the  success  of  his  work.  The  millenarian 
by  himself  would  have  accomplished  noth- 
ing durable :  the  moralist  by  himself  would 
have  accomplished  nothing  powerful.  Mil- 
lenarianism  gave  the  immediate  impulse: 
the  moral  doctrine  secured  the  future. 
And  thus  Christianity  united  in  itself  two 
conditions  of  its  greatest  success — a  point 

*  Chapter  vii,  passim. 


196  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  revolutionary  departure,  and  the  possi- 
bility of  life."* 

So  in  a  similar  manner  Jesus  became 
a  worker  of  miracles — a  thaumaturgist. 
According  to  our  author  the  miracles  of 
Jesus  were  an  after-thought — an  expedient 
to  which  he  was  driven  to  have  recourse, 
or  else  abandon  his  mission;  for  miracles 
were  then  deemed  the  indispensable  mark 
of  divine  claims.  It  was  understood  that 
the  Messiah  would  perform  many.  "Jesus 
then  had  no  alternative  but  to  renounce 
his  mission,  or  become  a  thaumaturgist. "f 
He  knew  nothing  besides,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  of  the  higher  philosophy  of 
the  Greek  schools;  he  had  no  conception 
of  "general  laws,"  and  an  inviolable  order 
of  nature.  He  behoved  that  human  power 
could   influence   natural   events ;    and  the 

*  Chapter  vii.  f  Page  257. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  197 

idea  of  miracles,  therefore,  excited  in  him 
no  surprise.  Yet  we  are  led  to  suppose  that 
the  working  of  miracles  were  something 
uncongenial  to  the  better  nature  of  Jesus. 
He  became  a  thaumaturgist  a  contre-cmur^ 
against  his  will,  and  continually  manifested 
impatience  under  the  necessities  which  it 
imposed  upon  him. 

All  that  concerns  this  subject  is  deeply 
painful  in  M.  Renan's  book.  It  could  not 
but  be  so.  His  principles  bound  him  to 
repudiate  all  supernatural  pretension.  A 
miracle  in  his  eyes  could  be  only  a  delu- 
sion or  imposture.  It  is  impossible,  with 
any  regard  to  the  statements  of  the  Gos- 
pels—  allowing  ever  so  much  for  their 
alleged  legendary  intermixtures — to  deny 
that  Jesus  did  profess  to  work  miracles. 
M.  Renan  would  fain  evade  the  conclusion, 
but  he  can  not.     It  is  forced  upon  him; 


198  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  in  a  single  memorable  case,  the  raising 
of  Lazarus,  he  attempts  to  grapple  with  it. 
Never  was  there  a  more  hopeless  task;  and 
the  higher  feeling  and  reason  of  M.  Renan 
himself  must  blush  when  he  reperuses  that 
miserable  scene  around  the  tomb  of  Laza- 
rus which  he  has  drawn  in  his  twenty-first 
chapter.  We  do  not  venture  to  lift  the 
vail  upon  it.  We  will  only  say  that, 
were  there  nothing  else  to  prove  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  ideal  which  he  attempts  to 
fi^  through  all  his  pages,  this  scene  were 
enough  to  destroy  that  ideal  forever.  The 
most  "vulgar  rationalism"  never  imposed 
a  baser  interpretation  on  any  Biblical  in- 
cident. The  skepticism  of  the  "Age  of 
Reason"  never  drew  a  more  unworthy 
picture.* 

*  "The  family  of  Bethany  was  led,   perhaps  without 
suspecting  it,  into  the  important  act  which  they  desired. 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  199 

We  are  told,  indeed,  how  great  and  good 
men,  in  every  age,  have  been  the  subject 
of  errors;  how  Columbus  was  a  dreamer, 

Jesus  was  there  adored.  It  seems  that  Lazarus  was  sick, 
and  that  it  was  even  on  the  message  of  the  alarmed  sisters 
that  Jesus  left  Perea.  The  joy  of  his  arrival  may  have 
reanimated  Lazarus.  Perhaps  also  the  desire  to  confound 
those  who  strenuously  denied  the  divine  mission  of  their 
friend  influenced  these  impassioned  persons  beyond  all 
bounds.  Perhaps  Lazarus,  yet  pale  from  his  sickness, 
surrounded  himself  with  bandages  as  one  dead,  and  shut 
himself  up  in  his  family  tomb.  These  tombs  were  large 
chambers  cut  in  the  rock,  which  was  entered  by  an  open- 
ing closed  with  a  great  slab.  Martha  and  Mary  came  in 
advance  to  Jesus,  and  without  permitting  him  to  enter 
into  Bethany  conducted  him  to  the  sepulcher.  The  emo- 
tion which  Jesus  manifested  at  the  tomb  of  his  friend, 
whom  he  believed  dead,  might  be  taken  by  the  attend- 
ants for  that  excitement  and  agitation  which  accompany 
miracles.  Popular  opinion  supposes  the  divine  virtue  to 
act  in  man  as  an  epileptic  or  convulsive  paroxysm. 
Jesus  desired  to  see  once  more  him  whom  he  had  loved; 
and  the  stone  having  been  removed,  Lazarus  came  forth 
with  his  grave-clothes,  and  his  head  bound  with  a  napkin." 
Page  361. 


200  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  how  Newton  believed  in  his  own  fool- 
ish explanations  of  the  Apocalypse;  how 
the  great  men  of  the  Middle  Ages,  how 
Joan  of  Arc,  came  near  to  deception  in 
many  of  their  most  illustrious  acts.  But 
the  moral,  nay,  the  historical,  reason  re- 
fuses to  take  any  satisfaction  from  such 
parallels;  its  wounds  can  not  be  healed 
by  such  anodynes.  Could  we  allow  for  a 
moment  the  vahdity  of  such  a  criticism 
of  the  Gospel  history,  all  divine  light  and 
beauty  must  vanish  from  its  pages.  The 
fane  that  has  been  kept  sacred  in  our  hearts 
would  be  desecrated;  the  ideal  which  has 
been  bright  to  us  when  all  else  was  dark 
would  lie  shivered  and  soiled — our  hopes 
shaken  with  it,  and  our  souls  darkened, 
with  no  dawn  to  break  on  them  any  more. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  prolong  this  sketch. 
The  sort  of  "Life"  which  M.  Renan  has 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  201 

attempted  is  sufficiently  apparent.  We 
are  not  conscious,  in  any  respect,  of  mis- 
representing him.  We  have  allowed  him, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  speak  in  his  own 
words — words,  it  must  be  granted,  which, 
in  their  polished  precision,  never  fail  to 
convey  his  meaning,  if  they  yet  often,  in 
their  very  delicacy  and  luxuriant  neatness, 
seem  to  jar  with  the  deeper  interests  and 
graver  bearings  of  his  subject. 

It  must  further  be  allowed  that  there  are 
aspects  of  the  subject  which  his  scholarly 
penetration  and  historic  liveliness  serve  to 
bring  into  fuller  and  more  vivid  light  than 
before.  No  one  has  more  clearly  appre- 
hended the  material  circumstances,  and  in 
some  respects  the  external  characteristics, 
in  the  midst  of  which  Christianity  arose. 
The  local  features  of  Palestine;  the  state 
of  the   Jewish   people   and   their   rulers ; 


202  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  factions  of  Pharisee  and  Sadducee;  the 
proud,  godless  intolerance  of  the  priest- 
hood, and  especially  of  the  powerful  family 
represented  by  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  that 
held  the  chief  power  in  their  hands;  the 
relation  of  these  factions  to  the  Roman 
authorities;  the  characters  of  Pilate  and 
of  Herod — all  stand  depicted  in  his  pages 
in  very  graphic,  interesting,  and  intelligible 
outline.  And  the  manner  in  which  he  has 
contrived  to  bring  forward  these  accessory 
realities  in  the  life  of  Jesus  has  given,  in 
parts,  a  pecuHar  air  of  fact  to  his  life,  and 
especially  to  the  narrative  of  its  closing 
scenes.  The  pathos  of  those  scenes,  so 
utterly  beyond  the  dream  of  fiction,  lives 
fresh  and  tender  beneath  all  the  unbelief 
of  the  philosopher  and  all  the  negations 
of  the  critic.  The  artist  is  more  natural, 
less  artificial,  in  the  face  of  their  tremen- 


ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  203 

dous  reality;  and  the  Christian  student 
may  gather  profit,  if  he  must  also  get 
pain,  from  their  perusal.  The  success 
with  which  M.  Renan  has  handled  these 
accessories  of  his  subject,  particularly  the 
portraits  of  Annas  and  of  Pilate,  only 
serves  to  bring  into  more  prominent  relief 
his  utter  failure  in  regard  to  his  main  sub- 
ject. The  human  aspects  of  his  story  are 
quite  wdthin  his  reach,  and  come  from  his 
pen  in  lively  and  impressive  colors;  but 
the  divine  life  transcends  his  conception; 
and,  misinterpreted  ahke  in  its  origin  and 
meaning,  comes  forth  from  his  pages,  as  we 
shall  show,  an  inconsistent,  unintelligible, 
and  distorted  picture. 


VI. 

THE  PERSON  AND  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

It  remains  for  us  to  consider  more  closely 
the  portrait  drawn  by  M.  Renan,  and  to 
test  the  value  of  his  work  by  its  effect. 
This  is  especially  the  test  which  his  work 
invites — which  the  subject  invites;  for  it 
must  be  the  special  aim  of  every  biogra- 
pher of  Jesus  to  explain,  as  far  as  he  can, 
the  historical  conditions  under  which  he 
arose — the  combination  of  influences  by 
which  his  character  was  molded,  and  which 
constituted  his  unexampled  individuality. 
We  have  seen  how  M.  Renan  tries  to  do 
this;  let  us  examine  the  result. 

In  whatever  degree  it  is  fair  to  judge 
of  ordinary  biography  by  its  result,  by  the 

204 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  205 

vraisemhlance  of  the  portrait  presented^  it 
must  be  fair  to  apply  such  a  test  to  a 
biography  of  Jesus,  and  to  judge  of  its 
success  accordingly;  for  of  all  charac- 
ters his  is  the  most  prominent,  the  most 
marked  and  impressive  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  By  universal  consent  no  such 
personahty  has  ever  before  or  since  ex- 
isted. M.  Renan  fully  and  frankly  admits 
this,  that  among  men  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
is  without  peer — the  greatest  in  himself, 
the  greatest  in  the  impulse  which  he  has 
communicated  to  the  world.  There  is  no 
religion  whos«  interest  centers  in  the  per- 
son and  character  of  its  founder  in  the 
same  degree  as  in  Christianity.  Christ  is 
Christianiti/ .  In  him  are  all  its  truths,  all 
its  motives,  all  its  glory  summed  up.  He 
is  its  Alpha  and  Omega;  the  embodiment 
of  all  it  teaches,  all  it  prescribes,  all  it 


206  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

promises.  In  this  respect  it  differs  entirely 
from  Mohammedanism,  or  Buddhism,  or 
any  other  religion  which  has  largely  influ- 
enced the  world.  They  rest  upon  many 
influences — Christianity  rests  above  all  on 
Christ.  It  is  the  spiritual  beauty  and  per- 
fection of  his  character  which  has  given 
it  the  hold  it  has  upon  the  intelligence 
of  the  most  intelligent  nations  of  the 
world — w^hich  has  given  it  the  sway  it 
has  over  the  most  spiritual  and  exalted 
souls  that  have  ever  lived  in  the  world. 
The  character  of  Mohammed  was  by  no 
means  an  important  element  in  the  influ- 
ence exercised  by  his  religion.  The  char- 
acter of  Cakya-Mouni — pure,  and  noble, 
and  self-denying  as  it  may  have  been — 
was  never  a  living,  consistent,  and  intelli- 
gible reality  to  the  millions  who  submitted 
themselves  to  his  doctrines  or  institutions. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  207 

Both  characters  may  be  quite  obscured  or 
forgotten,  and  yet  the  religions  which  they 
founded  survive  and  maintain  their  force. 
They  are  the  religions  of  peoples  governed 
by  institutions  and  traditions,  and  not  by 
character;  by  external  rather  than  by 
moral  influences ;  by  the  power  of  will 
at  best,  not  by  the  attraction  of  love. 
Let  it  be  admitted  that  there  are  nations 
to  whom  Christianity  has  also  become 
little  more  than  an  external  influence — an 
institution — which  claims  their  obedience, 
rather  than  a  moral  power  which  instinct- 
ively sways  their  hearts — to  whom  the 
character  of  Christ  is  hidden  behind  the 
forms  and  traditions  which  have  gathered 
around  his  name.  It  remains  true,  never- 
theless, that  this  character  is  the  great 
motive  power  of  a  living  Christianity 
every-where,  as  it  was  the  great  motive 


208  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

power  of  its  original  progression.  And 
it  is  no  less  true  that  Christianity  would 
wholly  fail  as  a  religious  influence  were 
this  character  to  lose  its  luster.  It  does 
so  proportionally  wherever  the  externali- 
ties of  the  religion  darken  this  spiritual 
ideal. 

Christianity  has  been  the  highest  spring 
of  human  civilization — its  most  preserving 
strength.  Why  so?  Because  it  has  given 
to  humanity  a  spiritual  ideal — a  perfect 
religious  conception — which  has  been  the 
light  of  the  world.  There  has  been  no 
visible  growth  in  this  ideal,  and  no  decay 
in  it.  It  burst  upon  the  world  with  a 
sudden  illumination  perfect  as  it  how  is. 
It  grew  up  "occidto  velut  arhor  arvo" — a 
"root  out  of  a  dry  ground."  In  the  lapse 
of  ages  it  has  suffered  no  change,  no  dim- 
inution.   Christian  creeds  have  imperfectly 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  209 

defined  it ;  Christian  institutions  imper- 
fectly represented  it;  even  Christian  hero- 
isms have  but  feebly  imitated  it.  Men 
and  Churches  have  faintly  followed  it,  and 
often  grossly  darkened  it  by  prejudice  and 
passion.  But  no  where  has  there  been  any 
advance  beyond  it.  It  remains  the  "light 
of  the  world/'  as  it  declared  itself  to  be 
eighteen  centuries  ago.  Whatever  has 
suffered  change,  or  seems  likely  to  suffer 
change — whatever  revision  may  await  sys- 
tems or  ceremonies,  modes  of  Christian 
thought  or  Christian  government  —  this 
ideal  remains  lustrous  with  the  same  radi- 
ance— "the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever"— an  example  of  all  love  and  of 
all  nobleness,  of  all  grace  and  all  true 
grandeur ;  inexhaustible  in  its  spiritual 
fullness,  incapable  of  improvement  in  its 
spiritual  proportions.     Art  and  life  alike, 

14 


210  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

the  responsive  intellectualj  and  the  re- 
sponsive moral  idea  in  us,  have  found 
in  it,  and  continue  to  find  in  it,  a  peren- 
nial fountain  of  inspiration;  they  catch 
some  new,  and  higher,  and  more  celestial 
aspects  of  it;  they  reach,  perhaps,  with 
the  deepening  thoughtfulness  of  increasing 
ages,  some  truer  comprehension  of  it;  but 
the  manifoldness  of  its  excellence  exceeds 
all  their  imitative  grasp.  It  still  towers 
above  them,  sympathetic  at  every  ,point 
to  the  touch  of  human  aspiration,  but  out- 
reaching  the  highest  possibility  of  human 
endeavor. 

This  unexampled  ideal  and  force  of 
character  in  Jesus  is  perfectly  consistent 
and  intelligible  to  the  Christian.  On  his 
theory  of  the  supernatural,  or  rather  his 
faith  in  a  living  God,  there  is  nothing  un- 
accountable in  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  211 

The  picture  only  answers  to  the  hand  of 
the  Divine  Artist.  "God  manifest  in  the 
flesh"  could  not  but  present  a  character 
unparalleled  in  spiritual  beauty  and  in 
capacity  of  spiritual  impulse.  Granting 
the  possibility  of  the  supernatural,  all 
follows  intelligibly.  The  Word,  "which 
in  the  beginning  was  with  God  and  was 
God,"  "was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among 
us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory 
of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father,  full 
of  grace  and  truth."  May  we  not  say 
that  the  necessity  of  the  supernatural 
is  already  involved  in  the  ideal  of  the 
Gospels — the  picture  which  they  set  be- 
fore us  ?  It  is  already  there,  because 
ihe)^e  is  obviously  the  Divine,  "the  glory 
of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father;"  the 
perfect  spiritual  expression  w^hich  no  com- 
bination of  natural  causes  could  ever  yield. 


212  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

This  supernatural  origin  appears  to 
the  Christian  the  adequate,  and  the  only 
adequate,  explanation  of  Christ  and  of 
Christianity.  The  cause  is  equal  to  the 
effect — the  effect  corresponds  to  the  cause. 
They  solve  and  confirm  one  another.  This 
has  been  the  unanimous  voice  of  Chris- 
tendom from  the  beginning.  It  is  but 
fair,  therefore,  to  require  from  one  who 
denies  this  supernatural  origin  an  adequate 
and  consistent  explanation  of  a  fact  which 
has  appeared  to  the  general  intelligence, 
as  well  as  to  the  eye  of  faith,  so  clearly 
to  involve  the  supernatural,  and  to  be 
unintelligible  without  it.  The  fact  itself 
may  be  denied.  The  surpassing  excel- 
lence of  the  spiritual  ideal  of  the  Gospels 
may  be  disputed.  Infidelity,  in  order  to 
be  consistent,  must  perhaps  always  in  the 
end  take  up  such  a  position,  and  attack 


en  A  RA  CTER  OF  JES  US.  213 

the  morality  as  well  as  the  divinity  of 
Christ.  We  shall  see  how  far  this  is  the 
case  with  our  author.  But  this  is  not  the 
ground  at  first,  or  indeed  mainly,  taken  up 
by  him.  Whatever  his  treatment  of  the 
subject  may  involve,  M.  Renan  is  so  far 
from  professing  to  depreciate  the  character 
of  Christ,  that  he  is  constantly  speaking 
of  him  as  above  every  other  character; 
and  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  "the 
highest  divine  consciousness  that  ever  ex- 
isted in  humanity  existed  in  him."  How 
does  he  justify  such  a  view?  How  does 
he  justify  the  demands  of  his  subject? 
Is  the  character  which  he  has  drawn  in 
any  degree  conformable  to  them? 

I.  Jesus,  according  to  him,  was  the 
natural  offspring  of  Judaism.  He  was  the 
incarnation    of   its    moral   genius    and    its 


214  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

Messianic  dreams — nothing  more.  Nature, 
the  teaching  of  the  synagogues,  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  populace  made  him 
what  he  was.  Is  this  possible?  Could 
such  a  character  spring  out  of  such  influ- 
ences, and  be  produced  from  such  sources? 
It  appears  to  us  wholly  impossible.  We 
may  allow  ever  so  much  for  the  sweet 
natural  genius  and  the  charming  suscepti- 
bility of  Jesus ;  but  the  result  is  still 
incredible.  For  let  genius  be  of  the  most 
transcendent  order,  it  must  yet  connect 
itself  by  definite  links  with  its  age  and 
time.  The  most  admirable  and  unique 
human  genius  is  found  to  stand  in  close 
intellectual  and  moral  relation  with  its 
cotemporaries.  Its  growth  is  understood 
from  what  they  were,  and  the  influences, 
direct  or  indirect,  which  they  exercised 
upon  it.     There  is  in  all  cases,  if  not  an 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  215 

entirely  clear,  yet  an  intelligible  affinity, 
between  the  highest  genius  and  the  tend- 
encies in  the  midst  of  which  it  arose. 

This   connection  is   entirely  wanting  in 
the   case    of   Jesus.     M.    Renan,   indeed, 
talks  of  moral  maxims  that  were  rife  in 
the  synagogues,  and  kindred  teachers,  such 
as  Hillel  and  Gamaliel.     But  his  constant 
affirmations    on    this    subject    rest    on   no 
evidence,  and  receive  no  countenance  even 
from  his  own  detailed  explanations.     The 
whole  picture  of  Judaism  which  he  draws 
is  opposed  to  them.     He  keeps  repeating 
statements  about  the  moral  teaching  of  the 
synagogue — statements,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, confessedly  founded  on  sources  not 
in   existence   till    two   centuries  after  the 
Christian  era;    but  he    can   not   point   to 
any  corresponding  features  in  the   actual 
Judaism  of  the  time.     The  features  which 


216  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

this  Judaism  presented  are  sufficiently 
well  known.  Pharisaism  and  Sadducism 
represented  its  two  predominant  tenden- 
cies; and  what  they  were,  especially  how 
utterly  unmoral  they  were,  no  one  has  bet- 
ter shown  than  our  author.  The  former 
had  lost  the  very  idea  of  morality — had 
obscured  and  perverted  its  most  obvious 
and  fundamental  obligations.  A  super- 
stitious formalism,  consecrating  the  most 
frivolous  external  observances,  was  its 
only  principle — a  baneful  and  malicious 
fanaticism  its  only  passion.  The  Saddu- 
cees  were  without  any  pretense  of  spiritual 
feeling  —  materialists  by  profession,  am- 
bitious of  power,  wealth,  pleasure,  but 
without  a  particle  of  serious  thought  or 
sentiment.  With  both  these  great  parties 
Christ  had  confessedly  no  relations  except 
those   of  hostility.     It  is   even  a  subject 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  217 

of  congratulation  to  M.  Renan  that  his 
hero^  in  the  progress  of  his  moral  develop- 
ment, was  so  far  removed  from  them — 
and  particularly  from  Pharisaism,  with  its 
solemn,  insipid  absurdities  and  hypocri- 
sies—  in  the  quiet  villages  of  Galilee. 
Here  it  was,  in  Galilee,  in  the  North, 
he  tells  us,  that  Jesus  imbibed  his  gen- 
erous and  lofty  moral  sentiments;  and  that 
the  inspiring  brilliancies  of  an  exquisite 
nature  nurtured  and  brought  to  maturity 
such  precious  fruit  of  moral  wisdom  in 
him. 

But  when  we  look  for  any  evidence 
of  this  moral  culture  in  the  North  any 
more  than  the  South,  in  Galilee  any  more 
than  in  Jerusalem,  M.  Renan  gives  us 
nothing  but  picturesque  description,  and 
dogmatic  appeal  to  the  Talmud.  He  has 
no  where  vindicated,  no  where  even  clearly 


218  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

explained,  the  marked  contrast  which,  ac- 
cording to  him,  existed  between  the  Juda- 
ism of  Galilee  and  of  Jerusalem.  And  for 
such  a  contrast  there  is  not  the  slightest 
historical  foundation.  The  spirit  of  the 
North  was  of  a  more  free,  simple,  and 
natural  character;  the  tendencies  of  Juda- 
ism had  not  there  developed  into  the  same 
hardened  oppositions — the  same  gross  for- 
mahsm  on  the  one  hand,  and  gross  indiffer- 
ence on  the  other.  All  that  was  charac- 
teristic in  Judaism  necessarily  reached  its 
most  prominent  expression  in  the  capital. 
But,  withal,  the  Judaism  of  the  North  and 
of  the  South,  of  Galilee  and  of  Jerusalem, 
was  substantially  the  same.  So  far  as 
the  Gospels  present  a  picture  of  the  state 
of  things,  it  is  the  same  story  of  partial 
susceptibility  to  the  higher  teaching  of 
Christ,  and  partial  rejection  of  it,  in  the 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  219 

North  and  in  the  South.  The  disciples 
were  Galileans.  They  were,  one  and  all, 
members  of  the  Northern  synagogues,  and 
may  be  taken,  from  the  mere  fact  of 
their  association  with  Christ,  as  above 
the  average  examples  of  the  religious 
and  moral  spirit  which  characterized  these 
synagogues.  Do  they  then  show,  apart 
from  the  direct  influence  and  instruction 
of  their  Master,  any  lofty  spiritual  tend- 
ency, any  characteristics  of  spiritual  wis- 
dom? Could  St.  Peter,  or  even  St.  John, 
before  the  day  of  Pentecost,  when  they 
accompanied  our  Lord  on  his  Galilean 
journeys,  be  conceived  as  giving  utterance 
to  any  such  sermon  as  that  on  the  Mount? 
Is  there  any  indication  in  them  of  the 
same  gifts  of  spiritual  wisdom  that  we 
find  in  him?  What  capacities  of  tender 
and    compassionate    love    there    were    in 


220  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

St.  John,  when  he  received  the  full  unction 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  his  epistles  show.  But 
how  different  was  his  original  natural 
Galilean  spirit  —  the  spirit  which  said, 
"  Lord,  wilt  thou  that  we  command  fire 
to  come  down  from  heaven  and  consume 
them?"*  This  was  the  spirit  of  the  syna- 
gogue, or  at  least  a  spirit  which  the 
teaching  of  the  synagogue  had  in  no 
degree  taught  John  to  correct,  or  even 
to  suspect.  If  the  religious  feeling  of 
Galilee  had  been  so  much  higher  than 
the  religious  feeling  of  Jerusalem,  would 
we  not  have  had  in  the  Gospels  abundant 
traces  of  the  fact?  If  such  maxims  as 
compose  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  had 
been  a  common  moral  currency  in  the 
Galilean  synagogues,  would  we  not  have 
found  some  evidence  of  this  in  the  disciples 

■^  Luke  ix,  54. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  221 

of  our  Lord  as  well  as  our  Lord  himself? 
Would  we  not  have  seen  at  least  a  higher 
and  more  spontaneous  susceptibility  to  his 
spiritual  teaching? 

The  truth  is,  that  M.  Renan  has  filled 
up  from  his  own  fertile  imagination  his 
glowing  picture  of  Galilee.  The  Gali- 
leans were  a  comparatively  rude  and 
simple  people :  their  country  w^as  more 
joyous  and  fruitful;  their  cottage  life  more 
sweet,  peaceful,  and  idyllic;  their  habits 
in  all  respects  more  natural.  But  of  a 
higher  spiritual  susceptibility,  or  a  richer 
spiritual  wisdom,  among  them  there  is  no 
trace.  It  was  at  Nazareth,  where  our 
Lord  "was  brought  up,"  that  "they  rose 
up  and  thrust  him  out  of  the  city,  and  led 
him  unto  the  brow  of  the  hill  whereon 
their  city  was  built,  that  they  might  cast 
him  down  headlong."     It  w^as  of  his  native 


222  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

district  that  he  said,  "A  prophet  is  not 
without  honor,  save  in  his  own  country, 
and  in  his  own  house."  It  was  of  Caper- 
naum, a  town  of  Galilee,  and  Chorazin, 
and  Bethsaida,  kindred  villages,  that  he 
laments  with  such  pathetic  sadness  that 
they  were  utterly  indifferent  to  his  teach- 
ing ;  that  if  the  works  which  had  been 
done  in  them  had  been  done  in  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  they  would  long  ago  have  repented. 
The  movement  of  Judas  the  Gaulonite  or 
Galilean,  so  far  as  it  can  be  taken  as 
an  indication  of  the  Galilean  spirit,  not 
only  shows  no  countenance  to  the  vieVr 
of  our  author,  but  is  entirely  opposed  to 
it.  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  unlike 
the  career  of  Jesus  than  the  disorderly 
political  aims  of  this  Judas.  In  Galilee 
were  found  no  doubt  the  simple  Shulamite, 
and  the  penitent  Magdalene,  and  the  good 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  223 

Joseph,  and  Mary;  but,  side  by  side,  there 
were  also  found  the  political  schemer,  the 
dark  bigot,  the  fanatical  enthusiast,  no  less 
than  in  Jerusalem.  The  same  variations 
of  natural  character,  with  unimportant 
modifications,  appear  in  both.  In  both 
there  is  the  same  mixture  of  bad  and 
good,  of  bigotry  and  simple  piety,  of  in- 
sensibility to  the  truth,  and  of  capacity  to 
receive  and  obey  it.  For  let  it  be  borne 
in  mind,  that  if  Jerusalem  prominently 
recalls  the  solemn  Pharisee,  the  caviling 
lawyer,  and  the  insipid  scribe,  there  were 
also  found  Simeon  and  Anna;  there,  or  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood,  abode  Martha, 
and  Mary,  and  Lazarus;  there  we  hear  of 
the  inquiring  Nicodemus,  and  the  kind  and 
tender  Joseph  of  Arimathea. 

In  short,  M.  Renan's  elaborate  contrast, 
and  the  inferences  which  he  founds  upon 


224  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

it,  have,  as  we  have  said,  no  historical 
foundation.  No  more  can  we  conceive 
Christianity  springing  up  by  a  natural 
process  of  development  in  Galilee  than 
in  Jerusalem.  The  spirit  of  Jesus  is  as 
little  the  spirit  of  the  one  as  of  the  other. 
He  found  a  few  congenial  souls  in  both. 
Probably  his  early  enthusiasm,  and  the 
first  fresh  tenderness  of  his  preaching,  en- 
countered a  less  stern  opposition  in  Galilee 
than  it  would  have  met  in  Jerusalem;  but 
he  owed  as  little  to  the  one  as  to  the 
other — to  the  teachers  in  the  synagogue 
as  to  the  doctors  in  the  Temple.  There 
were  susceptibilities  in  both  to  which  he 
addressed  himself;  but  there  was  no  cre- 
ative life  in  either  which  could  have  in- 
spired and  fashioned  him.  The  soil  was 
ready  here  and  there  in  both  for  the  seed 
of  the  kingdom;  it  may  have  been  more 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  225 

ready  in  the  North  than  the  South,  but 
unless  the  Divine  Sower  had  gone  forth 
to  sow,  not  only  would  the  seed  noA^er 
have  germinated  to  "everlasting  life" — it 
would  never  have  been  there  to  touch  the 
receptive  soil.  The  old  field  of  Judaic 
culture,  run  to  waste  through  many  cen- 
turies, and  grown  over  with  thorns  and 
briers,  might  have  been  turned  up  many 
times  and  slightly  fertilized  by  fresh  in- 
fluences, but  it  was  utterly  incapable  of 
nurturing,  still  more  of  producing,  a  new 
creative  germ  like  Christianity,  without 
the  interposition  of  the  Divine  Husband- 
man who  originally  prepared  it.  It  was, 
indeed,  the  prepared  field  for  Christianity. 
The  new  germ — "the  planting  of  the  Lord 
and  honorable" — needed  a  fitting  soil  in 
which  it  might  "take  root  downward  and 
bear  fruit  upward,"  and  Judaism  was  that 

15 


226  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

soil,  divinely  prearranged.  In  this  sense 
Christianity  was  a  development  of  Juda- 
ism, but  in  no  other.  The  one  was  the 
historical  preparation  for  the  other  when 
the  "fullness  of  the  ages"  was  come,  and 
the  Lord  of  Life  was  manifested  to  de- 
stroy the  works  of  evil.  Like  the  block 
of  marble  which  incloses  the  living  statue, 
from  which  the  glorious  conception  of 
genius  is  destined  to  arise  with  more 
than  mortal  intelligence  on  its  radiant 
form  and  countenance,  Judaism  may  be 
said  to  have  inclosed  Christianity,  and  to 
have  formed  the  material  out  of  which  it 
was  hewn;  but  no  more  than  the  blind 
amorphous  mass  can  grow  spontaneously 
into  living  outline  and  exquisite  expres- 
sion, could  the  shapeless  chaos  of  Jewish 
notions  eighteen  centuries  ago  have  grown 
into  the  living  Gospel. 


CHARA  CTER  OF  JESUS.  227 

M.  Renau  is,  indeed,  forced  upon  this 
conclusion  against  his  will.  Under  the 
mere  pressure  of  the  facts  he  is  driven 
to  recognize  in  Jesus  a  living  creative 
genius,  entirely  differing  from  any  thing 
in  Judaism.*  Neither  here  nor  any  where 
is  he  very  careful  of  consistency,  trusting 
to  the  facile  resources  of  his  brilliant 
rhetoric.  On  the  one  hand  he  tells  us 
that  in  the  early  teaching  of  Jesus  there 
is  nothing  with  which  the  synagogue 
was  not  already  familiar.  Soon  after- 
ward he  enlarges  upon  the  splendid  orig- 
inality of  Jesus  in  his  conception  of  God 
as  a  father — as  "  our  Father  in  heaven." 
"  This  is  his  grand  act  of  originality ;  in 
this  he  owes  nothing  to  his  race.  Neither 
Jew  nor  Mussulman  has  ever  understood 
this  delightful  theology  of  love.     The  God 

*  Pages  14-11. 


228  '       CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

of  Jesus  is  no  fatal  master,  who  kills  us 
when  he  pleases,  condemns  us  when  he 
pleases,  saves  us  when  he  pleases.  The 
God  of  Jesus  is  our  father.  He  is  the  God 
of  humanity."*  M.  Renan  is  here  perfectly 
right.  This  revelation  of  the  fatherhood 
of  God  is  the  great  act  of  originality  in 
Jesus — the  great  discovery  of  Christianity. 
No  human  religion  had  dreamed  of  it, 
no  human  philosophy  announced  it,  and 
both  had  done  all  that  they  ever  could 
do  for  the  world  before  the  advent  of 
Christianity.  The  conception  of  God  as 
infinitely  great  and  holy,  yet  infinitely 
tender  and  merciful — as  doing  according 
to  his  will  among  the  armies  of  heaven 
and  the  inhabitants  of  the  lower  world, 
and  yet  ordering  all  things  with  unerring 
righteousness  and  careful  love — as  utterly 

*  Pages  74-77. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  229 

removed  from  all  earthly  contact,  and  yet 
not  suffering  a  sparrow  to  fall  to  the 
ground  without  his  permission,  or  hearing 
unheeded  the  humblest  cry  of  his  crea- 
tures— as  enthroned  in  inaccessible  light 
which  no  man  can  approach  unto,  and  yet 
very  near  to  us  even  in  our  hearts — this 
sublime  conception,  which  the  woi'ld  con- 
fessedly owes  to  Christianity,  is  of  itself 
sufficient  to  demonstrate  the  divine  origin- 
ality of  Jesus.  Human  thought  had  not 
only  failed  to  elaborate  it — the  highest 
of  the  schools  not  only  been  unable  to 
seize  it  with  any  clearness  or  consistency 
of  vision — but  to  this  day,  wherever  it 
turns  from  the  light  of  Christianity,  human 
thought  fails  to  preserve  the  great  concep- 
tion, and  erects  in  its  stead  some  barren 
idol — the  Eternal  Process  of  Hegel,  or  the 
mute,  unconscious  Law  of  Renan. 


230  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

The  Christ  of  the  Gospels,  then,  is 
unintelligible  on  M.  Renan's  principles. 
There  is  really  no  foundation  for  the 
character  which  he  has  drawn.  The  origin 
of  Christianity  can  not  be  explained  even 
by  the  most  favorable  concurrence  of  nat- 
ural causes  in  Galilee  eighteen  centuries 
ago.  Nature  may  do  much  for  a  responsive 
soul,  but  even  its  most  glorious  combina- 
tions have  in  themselves  no  creative  effect. 
Sweet  genius  and  a  charming  spiritual 
susceptibility  may  constitute  an  attractive 
character,  and  even  rise  to  a  hight  of 
powerful  and  commanding  influence  in 
dealing  with  current  spiritual  influences, 
moving  all  minds,  and  awaiting  only  some 
kindling  touch  to  come  forth  into  perma- 
nent activity.  This  is  the  obvious  secret 
of  such  characters  as  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
and  others.    Marvelous  as  their  career  and 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  231 

the  power  which  they  exercised  may  be, 
we  understand  them  readily,  because  we 
see  the  conditions  out  of  which  they  sprang. 
But  these  conditions  we  no  where  see  in 
the  case  of  Jesus.  Let  nature  and  genius 
have  all  the  effect  that  can  be  ascribed  to 
them,  they  have  no  where  produced  such 
a  character;  they  have  in  no  case — not 
even  in  one  memorable  case  which  will 
occur  to  most  minds,  that  of  Socrates — 
approximated  to  the  production  of  such  a 
character;  they  have  no  where  developed 
into  such  an  originality  of  spiritual  con- 
ception, nor  molded  into  such  a  perfect 
proportion  of  spiritual  greatness.  No  mere 
human  influences  have  ever  germinated 
into  such  a  consummate  expression  of 
wisdom  and  love — of  "grace  and  truth." 
The  loftiest  human  model  still  stands — 
with  its  strange  mixture  of  loftiness  and 


232  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

lowness,  of  divine  light  and  human  dark- 
ness, of  righteousness  of  aim  and  error 
of  practice — at  an  infinite  distance.  Nor 
was  this  model,  be  it  remembered,  the 
production  of  Jewish  soil  and  of  an  effete 
age. 

The  more  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
Judaism  of  the  first  century  are  studied, 
the  more  all  the  tendencies  of  the  time 
are  investigated,  the  more  impossible  will 
it  appear  that  they  could  have  given  birth 
to  such  a  life  as  Christ's,  and  such  a  doc- 
trine as  Christianity.  It  might  even  be 
said  that  of  all  the  spiritual  forces  then  at 
work  in  the  world  Judaism  really  seems 
the  less  capable  of  originating  such  a  life 
and  such  a  doctrine.  It  is  not  merely 
a  higher  spirit  which  breathes  in  the 
Gospel;  but  it  is  a  different  spirit — a 
spirit  which,  in  its  creative  breadth  and 


CHA  RA  CTER  OF  JES US.  233 

life,  absorbs  every  other,  and  entirely 
transforms  it.  This  new  creative  energy, 
manifesting,  in  contact  with  Judaism  and 
Hellenism,  and  every  prevailing  form  of 
faith,  a  new  plastic  life,  is  the  character- 
istically divine  element  of  Christianity; 
and  in  this  respect  it  is  unlike  every 
system  and  every  religion  of  the  time. 

The  case  of  Philo,  to  which  our  author 
so  often  alludes,  presents  here  an  in- 
structive contrast.  In  the  writings  of 
the  Alexandrian  Jewish  philosopher  there" 
are  many  impressive  gleams  of  a  lofty 
moral  doctrine;*  there  is  especially  the 
same  constant  recognition  of  a  higher  ra- 
tional and  spiritual  life,  and  the  worthless- 

*  See  Quis  Rerum.  Div.  Heres?  8  et  seq.  iii,  Ed. 
Tauchnitz.  I  have  only  recently  made  any  study  of 
Philo,  and  therefore  speak  from  a  partial  knowledge. 
But  I  do  not  think  any  candid  student  of  Philo  and 
the  Gospels  will  dispute  the  representation  of  the  text 


234  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

ness,  in  comparisorij  of  the  mere  material 
and  sensitive  life,  that  we  find  in  the 
Gospels  and  also  in  Socrates ;  there  are 
comprehensive  views  of  God,  but  there 
is  no  creative,  spiritual  conception,  fusing 
all  together,  and  combining  them  into  a 
living  doctrine,  capable  of  animating  men's 
hearts,  controlling  their  principles,  and 
guiding  their  conduct.  The  finest  spir- 
itual thoughts  are  mixed  up  with  the 
most  fantastic  intellectual  and  spiritual 
conceits ;  glimpses  of  truth  are  obscured 
by  shadows  of  error  5  visions  of  a  living 
God  by  suspicions  of  a  mere  universal 
principle,*  removed  beyond  all  human 
contact  and  sympathy. 

And  the  very  same,  and  in  a  still  higher 
degree,  is  notoriously  true  of  the  moral 
doctrine  of  the   Talmud.      Did  we  grant 

*  Philo  (Mangey's  edition)  I,  560,  682,  etc. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  235 

all  that  our  author  says  of  the  excellence 
of  its  moral  precepts,  and  then-  coincidence 
with  those  of  the  Gospel — did  we  grant 
even  that  which  would  be  quite  unwar- 
rantable, the  higher  originality  of  the  Tai- 
mudical  precepts — he  would  be  far  from 
making  out  his  point.  For  these  precepts 
are,  in  the  Talmud,  imbedded  amid  a  mass 
of  absurdities  of  the  most  frivolous  and 
debasing  description — immoral  in  principle 
and  ridiculous  in  end.  Now  this  is  a 
difference  not  merely  in  degree,  but  in 
kind — a  difference  which  settles  the  whole 
question,  and  leaves  the  divine  originality 
of  the  Gospels  as  conspicuous  as  ever;  for 
no  intelligent  student  has  ever  claimed 
absolute  originality  for  every  precept  of 
the  Gospels;  no  one  has  denied,  or  need 
deny,  that  the  sayings  of  Christ  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  elsewhere  may 


236  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

have  been  partly  derived  and  adapted  from 
Jewish  sources — although  this  has  actually 
not  been  proved — and  may  therefore  be 
pai;alleled  by  similar  sayings  in  the  Tal- 
mud. Every  one  has  recognized  with  a 
delightful  satisfaction  the  striking  coinci- 
dence between  some  of  these  sayings  and 
those  of  the  Platonic  Socrates.*  But  no 
such  manifest  coincidence,  no  such  indebt- 
edness, even  could  it  be  proved,  touches 
the  essential  originality  of  the  evangelical 
doctrine.  This  consists,  above  all,  in  the 
completeness  of  that  doctrine,  and  its 
unity  of  creative  conception  and  force. 
There  are  no  shadows  and  no  reserves 
in  it,  no  painful  gropings  or  hesitations, 
no  uncertainties;  but  all  is  clear,  compre- 

*  See,  among  other  examples  of  this,  Plato,  Legg.  5, 
742  e.;  Gorg.  50Y  b.;  Rep.  8,  555  c;  and  9,  591  e.;  and 
9^  586  a.;  Tim.  28  c,  37  c;  Theaet.  176  a.;  Apol.  29  b. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  237 

hensive,  axiomatic,  vitally  organized,  and 
rounded  into  a  perfect  harmony;  simple, 
so  that  any  child  may  understand  it,  yet 
subtile  and  profound  enough  to  satisfy  the 
deepest  gaze  of  the  philosopher.  There 
may  be  analogous  precepts  in  other  re- 
ligions, but  there  is  no  such  j^eligious  system 
any  where,  nor  any  approach  to  it.  Other 
ages  of  the  world  have  had  their  great 
teachers;  fragments  of  the  highest  truth 
may  be  gathered  from  many  sources;  but 
no  age  has  had  a  teacher  such  as  Gahlee 
had  in  the  first  century;  and  no  such 
living  and  fertile  unity  of  doctrine  has 
ever  been  made  known  to  the  world. 

II.  But  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  is  not 
only  unintelligible  on  M.  Kenan's  data; 
the  portrait  which  he  has  drawn  is,  more- 
over,   inconsistent    in    itself.      The    ideal 


238  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

which  he  paints  is  contradictory  and  in- 
credible. To  the  Christian  the  character 
of  Christ  is  at  once  intelligible  in  its  origin 
and  perfectly  consistent  in  its  twofold 
activity,  moral  and  miraculous.  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh"  could  not  but  be 
both  infinitely  beautiful  in  character  and 
miraculous  in  working.  A  supernatural 
personality  was  only  manifesting  itself, 
according  to  its  proper  nature,  in  the  ex- 
hibition of  supernatural  powers  of  healing, 
and  of  raising  the  dead.  Such  miracles 
as  fill  the  Gospels  not  only  do  not  con- 
tradict the  idea  of  such  a  personality,  but 
form  its  fitting  and,  so  to  speak,  necessary 
witness.  The  strange  thing  would  have 
been  if  such  a  personality  had  not  wrought 
such  miracles ;  for  h  3w  otherwise  could  the 
supernatural  bear  witness  to  itself  save  in 
manifestations    of   supernatural   love    and 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  239 

power?  The  mere  idea  of  wonder-working 
for  the  sake  of  eclat,  or  the  gratification  of 
personal  distinction,  is  utterly  alien  to  the 
character  of  the  Christian  miracles.  They 
are  never  artistically  prepared;  they  are 
not  preluded  by  any  self-aspertion ;  audi- 
ences are  not  assembled  to  witness  them; 
but  they  come  forth  as  the  proper  efflu- 
ence of  the  Divine  Man  when  he  walks 
the  earth.  At  the  very  commencement 
of  his  ministry,  in  the  synagogue  of  Caper- 
naum, in  the  house  of  a  newly-married 
friend  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  so  soon  as  the 
time  Avas  come  when  he  must  be  about 
his  Father's  business  and  accomplish  the 
works  that  had  been  given  him  to  do,  his 
miraculous  powers  manifest  themselves. 
So  far  from  being  fj^ctitious  inventions 
to  secure  reputation,  or  to  preserve  what 
reputation  he  had  already  acquired,  they 


240  CHARACTER   OF  JESUS. 

are  the  actual,  the  spontaneous  expres- 
sion of  the  mind  and  spirit  that  were  in 
him;  for  those  who  saw  them  were  all 
amazedj  and  spoke  among  themselves, 
saying,  "What  a  woy^d  is  this!  for  with 
authority  and  power  he  commandeth  the 
unclean  spirits,  and  they  come  out."* 

There  is,  therefore,  to  the  Christian  a 
perfect  consistency  between  the  character 
and  the  works  of  Christ.  To  M.  Renan 
they  are  utterly  inconsistent,  and  he  is 
condescending  enough  to  propose  excuses 
for  the  evangelical  miracles.  "It  is  nec- 
essary," he  says,  "to  admit  that  some  acts, 
which  our  enlightened  age  must  regard  as 
displays  of  illusion  or  madness,  occupy  a 
chief  place  in  the  life  of  Jesus. f  But  an 
apology  may  be  found  for  them  in  the 
consideration  that  all  popular  heroes  and 

*  Luke  iv,  36.  f  Page  266. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  241 

reformers  were  then  expected  to  work 
miracles.  Thamnaturgy  was  a  role  of 
the  time  from  which  no  great  man  could 
escape.  The  school  of  Alexandria  was 
a  noble  school,  and  yet  it  was  devoted  to 
practices  of  extravagant  theurgy.  Soc- 
rates and  Pascal  were  not  exempt  from 
hallucinations."  How,  then,  can  we  ex- 
pect Jesus  to  be  singular  in  this  respect? 
In  the  direct  face  of  all  evidence  it  is 
asserted  that  Jesus  assumed  with  reluct- 
ance the  thaumaturgic  role.  It  was  un- 
known to  the  first  beautiful  and  joyous 
period  of  his  life  —  the  period  of  his 
fresh,  moral  enthusiasm  in  Galilee,  and 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  and  it  was 
only  assumed  when  he  saw  symptoms 
of  his  influence  beginning  to  wane,  and 
when  the  opposition  which  he  encountered 

kindled  in  him  a  more  stormy  zeal.     To 

IB 


242  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS, 

the  last  it  was  uncongenial  to  him.  "He 
was  a  thaumaturgist  and  an  exorcist  in 
spite  of  himself." 

Not  to  insist  upon  the  total  lack  of 
evidence  for  such  an  account  of  Christ's 
miracles,  or  rather  the  abounding  evidence 
against  it,  such  a  character  as  M.  Renan 
thus  attributes  to  Jesus  is  plainly  self- 
contradictory.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive such  a  union  of  moral  excellence 
with  such  thaumaturgic  imposture  as  he 
attributes  to  him.  Men  of  the  highest 
goodness  may  no  doubt  fall  into  grave  mis- 
takes. Pascal  may  believe  in  the  miracle 
of  the  Holy  Thorn,  and  a  St.  Bernard 
and  St.  Francis  may  delude  themselves, 
in  special  moments  of  spiritual  access,  with 
the  possession  of  miraculous  powers ;  but 
there  is  nothing  really  parallel  in  such 
cases  to  the  miraculous  career  of  Jesus. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  243 

None  of  these  men  claimed,  in  the  sense 
that  he  did,  a  supernatural  mission.  Even 
assuming  their  own  point  of  view,  the 
miraculous  was  at  the  most  an  accident 
in  their  lives.  But  it  was  the  charac- 
teristic life  of  Jesus  —  no  after-thought, 
no  concession  forced  upon  him — but  the 
primary  and  appropriate  manifestation  of 
his  Messianic  mission,  and  the  self-consti- 
tuted vindication  of  the  divinity  which 
he  claimed.  It  is  impossible  to  apologize 
for  such  a  miraculous  career,  for  such 
miraculous  claims,  supposing  them  to  have 
been  factitious  and  assumed.  If  Jesus 
was,  according  to  M,  Renan,  a  mere  won- 
der-worker, a  thaumaturgist,  like  Appol- 
lonius  of  Tyana,  he  could  not  be  the  noble 
and  beautiful  character  which  he  describes. 
The  Preacher  on  the  Mount  would  cry 
shame  upon  the  thaumaturgist  in   Caper- 


244  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

naum,  in  Cana,  in  Nain.  Character,  in 
this  strange  world  of  ours,  is  often  mys- 
teriously complex — the  good  and  the  evil 
lying  side  by  side  in  startling  and  per- 
plexing combination — but  the  mournfulest 
contradictions  of  character  that  the  world 
has  ever  witnessed  would  be  outrivaled  by 
the  contradiction  which  the  character  of 
Christ  would  thus  present.  The  "highest 
consciousness  of  God  that  has  ever  existed 
in  the  bosom  of  humanity,"  allied  to  the 
tricks  of  the  wonder-worker,  the  impos- 
tures of  the  exorcist — who  does  not  feel 
his  spirit  shudder  at  such  a  thought;  who 
does  not  feel,  at  such  a  suggestion,  the 
shadows  of  the  world's  mystery  to  darken 
over  him,  and  the  idea  of  the  divine  to 
go  out  of  his  heart  in  the  blackness  of  an 
inexplicable  confusion?  Mixed  as  are  the 
representations    of    human    history,    and 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  245 

strangely  combined  as  are  the  possibilities 
of  good  and  evil  in  many  a  soul,  such  an 
association  as  that  of  imposture  with  the 
name  of  Jesus  exceeds  all  the  limits  of 
human  credibility. 

The  old  infidelity,  which  was  audacious 
to  deny  any  divine  excellence  to  Christ — 
which  would  have  repudiated  as  super- 
stitious the  concession  of  M.  Renan,  that 
he  had  the  highest  consciousness  of  the 
divine — was,  in  reality,  more  consistent 
than  this  new  infidelity.  It  hated  the 
Gospel,  and  it  called  Christ  deliberately  an 
impostor.  It  recognized  nothing  divine, 
nothing  good  in  him;  and  so  at  least  it 
was  consistent  as  it  w^as  audacious.  His- 
torical criticism  has  driven  such  an  infi- 
delity out  of  the  field.  It  is  no  where 
to  be  found  now,  save  in  the  ranks  of 
ignorance   and   irreligion.      The   character 


246  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

of  Christ,  in  all  moral  attributes,  reveals 
itself  the  greater,  the  more  it  is  studied  in 
the  full  light  and  by  the  higher  methods 
of  modern  historical  inquiry.  M.  Renan 
is  forced,  amid  all  his  inconsistencies,  to 
admire  its  surpassing  excellence,  its  divine 
beauty.  It  appears  to  us  impossible  to 
do  this,  and  yet  to  deny  the  supernatural 
claims  of  Christ.  His  morality  and  his 
miracles  are  inseparably  bound  up  to- 
gether— the  complementary  attributes  of 
the  same  divine  personality.  The  critical 
solvents  which  avail  in  other  cases  do  not 
avail  here.  It  is  possible,  for  example, 
to  recognize,  with  the  modern  spirit  of 
historical  inquiry,  the  genuine  greatness 
of  Mohammed,  and  the  species  of  divine 
enthusiasm,  so  to  speak,  which  carried 
him  forward  in  his  marvelous  career.  It 
is  possible  in  his  case  to  do  this,  and  at 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  247 

the  same  time  to  deny  to  him  any  super- 
natural or  divine  mission;  for  he  did  not 
claim  to  be  himself  endowed  with  miracu- 
lous powers;  he  did  not  appeal  to  the 
works  which  he  did  as  attestations  of  his 
divine  mission;  he  did  not,  in  fact,  profess 
to  work  miracles,  although  he  professed  to 
be  the  "prophet"  of  God,  and  to  hold 
special  communications  mth  heaven.  He 
claimed  merely  what  many  enthusiasts 
have  claimed,  what  Socrates  claimed,  what 
Cromwell  claimed;  and  the  historical  sense 
is  not  offended  in  recognizing  even  the 
moral  greatness  of  such  characters,  while 
questioning  the  reality  of  their  supposed 
divine  communications.  An  exalted  en- 
thusiasm, frequently  losing  itself  in  the 
divine,  explains  all,  or  nearly  all.  The 
same  is  true  of  such  characters  as  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  Joan  of  Arc,  and  others 


248  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

which  M.  Renan  uses  as  parallels.  But  it 
is  impossible  to  place  Christ  on  the  level 
of  such  characters  J  and  to  explain  his 
career  on  the  same  principles ;  and  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  supernatural 
in  his  case  is  no  mere  temporary  access 
of  divine  enthusiasm ;  no  possible  self- 
creation  of  a  divine  madness  in  the  brain. 
It  is  the  sphere  in  which  he  lives;  it  is 
the  constant  manifestation  of  his  activity; 
it  is  the  test  of  his  mission  clearly  recog- 
nized and  urged  by  himself  Let  any  one 
only  take  up  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew — 
we  appeal  to  it  because  M.  Renan  so  uni- 
formly appeals  to  it,  and  professes  to  put 
it  above  the  others — and  notice  how  the 
very  commencement  of  our  Lord's  min- 
istry* witnesses  itself  in  a  cluster  of 
miraculous  acts.     The  hour  of  his   divine 

*  Matt,  viii,  9 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  249 

manifestation  is  come,  and  this  shows  it- 
self in  an  outburst  of  supernatural  love 
and  power :  cleansing  the  leper,  healing 
the  sick,  stilling  the  tempest,  casting  out 
devils,  raising  the  dead,  restoring  sight  to 
the  blind  and  speech  to  the  dumb.  As 
he  himself  said,  w^hen  the  imprisoned  Bap- 
tist sent  his  disciples  to  make  sure  anew 
whether  he  was  the  Messiah  or  Avhether 
they  should  look  for  another:  "The  blind 
receive  their  sight  and  the  lame  walk,  the 
lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the 
dead  are  raised  up,  and  the  poor  have 
the  Gospel  preached  to  them."  These 
acts  were  not  accidents  in  his  career, 
but  "mighty  works,"  wrought  with  a  con- 
scious aim,  and  to  which  he  constantly 
appealed. 

There    can    be    only    one   possible    ex- 
planation   of   miraculous    claims^    such    as 


250  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

these,  consistently  with  the  honesty  of  the 
person  who  makes  them — namely,  their 
reality.  The  idea  of  mere  enthusiasm  or 
of  lofty  self-exaltation  will  in  no  degree 
explain  them.  From  such  enthusiasm — 
indeed,  from  any  thing  of  that  divine 
madness,  that  sibylline  rapture  which  is 
the  recognized  attribute  of  the  ordinary 
prophetic  enthusiast  —  the  character  of 
Christ  is  singularly  free.  Its  type  is  that 
of  serene  majesty  —  of  calmly-conscious, 
clear,  profound,  steadfast  intelligence,  in 
which  the  divine  is  mirrored  with  pellucid 
consistency.  The  historical  sense,  there- 
fore, at  once  rejects  the  idea  of  ranking 
such  a  character  with  any  of  those  that 
have  been  mentioned.  Its  canons  of  ex- 
planation fail  here.  The  moral  purity  of 
such  a  character  can  only  be  vindicated  in 

ft-' 

combination  with  the  reality  of  the  divine 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  251 

acts  which  illustrated  it.  If  Jesus  was  a 
true  man — still  more,  a  man  in  whom  the 
divine  consciousness  was  more  than  in  any 
other  man — he  was  also  divine ;  for  he 
wrought  the  works  of  God,  and  these 
works  bore  witness  to  him  that  he  came 
from  God,  and  that  God  was  in  him. 

There  are  other  points  of  view  in  which 
this  argument  of  consistency  might  be 
urged,  and  in  a  very  striking  manner. 
We  only  allude  to  one  more  at  present. 
The  modern  theory  of  Christ's  character, 
by  those  who  deny  his  divinity,  is  that 
of  a  great  religious  hero  and  martyr — one 
who  died  to  vindicate  human  liberty  and 
the  right  of  spiritual  intelligence  against 
the  oppression  of  priestcraft  and  the  ser- 
vilities of  a  godless  material  power.  This 
is  so  far  the  view  of  our  author.  In  the 
closing  period  of  his  career  Christ  is  to 


252  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

him  something  of  such  a  hero  and  martyr. 
But  he  is  conscious  also  how  imperfectly 
such  a  character  fits  Christ,  and  especially 
the  Christ  of  the  Passion.  There  is  a 
feeling,  scarcely  of  awe,  for  that  could  not 
be,  but  of  softened  solemnity,  that  moves 
even  his  pages,  as  he  recounts  the  story 
of  the  Passion.  And  what  a  story  is 
that!  What  a  picture  of  infinite,  myste- 
rious sorrow — of  shadow  deeper  than  all 
other  shadow  that  has  ever  lain  on  our 
earth — as  Jesus  withdrew  from  his  dis- 
ciples "about  a  stone's  cast,"  and  fell 
on  his  face  and  prayed,  saying,  "0,  my 
Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass 
from  me;  nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but 
as  thou  wilt."  How  does  the  soul  go  forth 
in  ineffable  tenderness  toward  the  bearer  , 
of  such  a  burden  as  bowed  the  Son  of  man 
to  the  earth;   when  his  spirit  groaned  in 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  253 

incomprehensible  travail,  and  "the  sweat 
was  as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood  falling 
down  to  the  ground."  But  is  this  the 
characteristic  spirit  of  the  hero  and  mar- 
tyr? Do  we  feel,  as  we  read  the  story 
of  the  Passion,  that  we  are  contemplating 
merely  the  struggles  of  a  great  human 
soul?  Is  that  "agony  and  bloody  sweat," 
that  cry  of  impassioned  mystery,  that 
weakness  and  shrinking  as  from  death, 
and  finally  that  horror  of  great  darkness 
as  he  hung  upon  the  cross,  and  felt  that 
God  had  forsaken  him — is  all  this  of  the 
nature  of  heroic  martyrdom?  Is  it  not 
something  entirely  different  from  the  stead- 
fast rejoicing  willingness  of  a  Paul:  "I  am 
ready  to  be  offered  up,  and  the  time  of  my 
departure  is  at  hand?"  From  the  blind, 
headlong  rapture  of  an  Ignatius  :  "  Suffer 
me  to  be  the  food  of  wild  beasts;  do  not 


254  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

intercede  for  me  :  fire  and  the  cross,  the 
assaults  of  wild  beasts,  the  tearing  of 
my  limbs,  the  breaking  of  my  bones,  the 
grinding  of  my  whole  body — I  welcome 
them  all?"*  Assuredly  it  is.  As  we 
stand  in  spirit  by  the  side  of  the  sleeping 
disciples  and  watch  their  suffering  Lord — 
as  we  hear  him  cry  from  the  cross,  "My 
God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?"  before  he  bowed  his  head  and  gave 
up  the  ghost — we  feel  we  are  entering 
into  the  communion  of  a  deeper  and  more 
mysterious  sorrow  than  the  world  has  ever 
known— a  sorrow  which  is  not  weakness — 
a  sorrow  in  which  no  notes  of  mere 
martyr-triumph  mingle,  which  no  gleam 
of  rejoicing  heroism  illumines,  but  which 
becomes  bright  with  an  awful  meaning, 
then  and   only  then,  when  we  recognize 

*  Ignatii  Epist.  ad  Romanos,  c.  4,  5, 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  255 

in  it  the  reality  of  a  divine  sacrifice  for 
the  sins  of  the  world;  the  offering  up  of 
Him  who,  "though  he  knew  no  sin,  yet 
was  made  sin  for  us,  that  we  might  be 
made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him." 

III.  But,  finally,  the  portrait  which 
M.  Renan  has  given  us  in  his  volume  is 
not  only  unintelligible  and  inconsistent, 
but,  moreover,  inadequate.  It  fails  to 
explain  the  effects  which  have  followed 
from  the  character  and  doctrines  of  Christ. 
These  effects  have  always  been  consid- 
ered as  a  legitimate  evidence  of  the  divine 
origin  of  Christianity.  Nothing  but  a 
divine  power,  it  has  been  argued,  could 
originate  such  a  world-transforming  influ- 
ence as  Christianity;  and  the  argument 
is  perfectly  valid  in  the  view  of  what  we 
have  said — namely,  that  Christianity  has 


256  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

spread,  and  continues  to  spread,  mainly 
by  virtue  of  its  spiritual  attractiveness. 
It  was  the  divine  life,  the  moral  might  in 
it,  which  first  subdued  the  Roman  world, 
and  then  molded  into  new  and  higher 
forms  of  civilization  the  Northern  races  - 
that  overspread  it,  and  have  since  devel- 
oped into  the  great  European  nations. 
By  the  same  means  it  continues  to  this 
day  to  move  these  nations-  and  the  wide- 
spreading  nationalities  that  have  sprung 
from  them  in  other  hemispheres — to  color 
and  exalt  all  their  highest  thoughts,  and 
all  their  social  and  legislative  activities. 
Not  only  so;  but  gradual,  and  even  here 
and  there  reactionary,  as  may  seem  the 
course  of  missionary  enterprise,  Christian- 
ity continues  to  manifest  throughout  the 
world,  and,  in  contact  with  other  religions, 
a    spiritually -subduing    and    transforming 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  257 

force,  which  is  altogether  unparalleled. 
Unlike  other  religions — particularly  those 
great  Eastern  religions,  whose  spread  and 
power,  in  point  of  mere  magnitude,  present 
the  only  parallel  to  it — it  radiates  from 
the  highest  centers  of  human  intelligence, 
carrying  with  it  not  merely  a  new  faith, 
but  the  highest  attributes  of  intelligence, 
wherever  it  penetrates.  Other  religions 
radiate  from  centers  of  comparative  igno- 
rance, and  show  themselves  utterly  power- 
less in  contact  with  the  awakened  energies 
of  humanity  in  other  regions.  Christianity 
remains  the  only  vitalizing  spiritual  power 
in  the  world;  and,  apart  from  the  living 
energy  that  lies  in  it,  it  may  be  doubtful 
whether  there  is  any  reality  of  moral 
progress  in  the  world.  Thought  and 
science,   with    all    their    advances,   would 

prove   but   poor  factors  in  this   progress, 

17 


258  CHARAGTEB  OF  JESUS. 

were  it  not  for  the  impulses  which  they 
borrow  from  Christian  philanthropy  and 
enterprise. 

And  all  this  sum  of  spiritual  influence 
our  author  supposes  to  have  sprung  from 
a  man,  half  enthusiast,  half  charlatan — 
a  man  himself,  indeed,  of  the  noblest 
spiritual  impulses  and  the  highest  divine 
consciousness,  but  who  yet  condescended 
to  spread  his  doctrine  by  falsehood,  and 
to  excite  attention  by  artifices  and  im- 
posture !  This  Jesus  whom  M.  Renan 
pictures  beside  the  grave  of  Lazarus — 
half  the  dupe  and  half  the  impostor  in 
the  disgraceful  scene — he  is  to  be  con- 
ceived as  standing  at  the  head  of  this  un- 
exampled moral  development  of  humanity ! 
It  is  all  the  result  of  the  fine  thoughts  and 
beautiful  sentiments  which  he  promulgated. 
This  is  not  merely  our  way  of  putting  it. 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  259 

M.  Renan  distinctly  claims  for  the  Jesus 
whom  he  has  described  such  an  unexam- 
pled influence.  "Christianity,"  he  says, 
in  his  concluding  chapter,  "has  become 
almost  synonymous  with  religion.  Apart 
from  the  great  and  good  Christian  tradi- 
tion, we  should  know  nothing  of  religion. 
It  would  be  mere  barrenness.  Jesus  has 
founded  religion  in  humanity,  as  Socrates 
has  founded  in  it  philosophy,  and  Aristotle 
science.  Since  Socrates  and  Aristotle, 
philosophy  and  science  have  made  im- 
mense progress;  but  all  has  been  built 
upon  the  foundations  which  they  laid.  In 
the  same  manner,  before  Jesus,  religious 
thought  had  passed  through  many  revo- 
lutions. Since  Jesus  it  has  made  great 
conquest;  but  we  have  not  left  behind, 
we  shall  never  leave  behind,  the  essential 
idea  which  Jesus  created.     He  has  fixed 


260  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

forever  the  idea  of  pure  worship.  In  this 
sense  his  religion  is  without  limits.  The 
Church  has  had  its  epochs,  its  phases,  its 
symbols,  which  have  been,  or  will  be,  but 
temporary;  but  Jesus  has  founded  abso- 
lute religion,  excluding  nothing,  defining 
nothing,  save  only  the  sentiment."* 

This  religion  of  humanity — the  only 
religion  worthy  of  man,  or  ha,ving  any 
elements  of  performance  in  it — has  yet 
been  founded  in  imposture!  Is  this  con- 
ceivable ?  Is  it  not  utterly  incredible  ? 
Many  powers  have  moved  the  world, 
and  left  tracks  of  light  behind  them  on 
its  darkened  history.  As  we  look  back 
upon  them,  we  are  forced  to  recognize 
the  strange  mixture  of  the  evil  with  the 
good  which   they  present.     They  are  of 

*  Pages   445-46.     "N'excluant   rien,    ne   determinant 
rien,  si  ce  n'est  le  sentiment." 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  261 

the  world,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
the  taint  of  the  world's  error — it  may  be 
of  the  world's  vice — upon  them.  But 
here  is  a  power  which  has  moved  the 
world  to  unexampled  good — which  in  it- 
self, and  so  far  as  it  has  been  unspoiled 
by  other  admixture,  has  shone  with  a 
stainless  luster  upon  all  the  world's  dark- 
ness; and  we  are  to  believe  that  not  only 
error  but  falsehood  has  mingled  in  its 
origin!  Say  what  we  will  of  the  differ- 
ence of  the  Oriental  nature — of  its  inca- 
pacity of  distinguishing  truth  from  false- 
hood in  our  European  sense — is  it  not 
mockery  in  such  a  case  to  urge  such  pallia- 
tions, or  to  suppose  that  they  have  any 
application?*  The  world  has  been  regen- 
erated. Christendom,  wdth  its  beautiful 
sanctities,  its   blessed   charities,   its   wise 

*  Page  252. 


262  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

and  beneficent  institutes,  its  peaceful  and 
glorious  aspirations,  has  been  created.  The 
temple  of  humanity — all  that  is  high,  and 
pure,  and  noble  in  human  thought,  and 
feeling,  and  enterprise  —  has  been  built 
upon  "the  foundation  of  apostles  and 
prophets — Jesus  Christ  the  chief  corner- 
stone." And  yet  we  are  to  suppose  that 
delusion,  that  falsehood  lies  below  all  this; 
that  the  incarnation  is  a  dream,  the  resur- 
rection a  legen-i!  May  we  not  say,  with- 
out exaggeration,  that  the  difficulties  of 
unbelief  are  far  greater  than  those  of 
faith;  that  it  makes  in  the  end  demands 
upon  our  understanding  far  more  impor- 
tunate and  amazing? 

Infidelity,  in  the  course  of  its  rapid 
developments  in  recent  years,  seems  to 
make  this  more  and  more  apparent;  and  it 
is  well  that  it  should  do  so.     Deplorable 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  263 

as  are  the  wounds  which  it  inflicts  upon 
many  hearts  and  consciences,  it  is  better 
that  it  should  have  in  this  way  its  perfect 
^ork — better  far,  certainly,  than  that  it 
should  experience  any  material  checks,  or 
be   met   by  other   arguments   than   those 
of   reason   and   faith,   in   that   great   and 
apparently -progressive     conflict     between 
truth    and    error,    which    God    has    seen 
meet  to  suffer  in  the  world.     The  truth, 
as  Milton  long  ago  said,  has  no  need  to 
fear    save  when   other  weapons    than   its 
own   are   employed   in   its    defense.     "If 
my    kingdom    were    of   this    world,   then 
would   my   servants   fight.      But   now   is 
my   kingdom   not   from   hence.      To   this 
end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  came  I  into 
the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness  of 
the  truth."     The  truth  is  every-where  and 
in   all   ages   its   own   witness.      It   fights 


264  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS, 

with  its  own  weapons,  which  are  never  the 
weapons  of  material  force,  of  social  perse- 
cution, or  of  official  penalties.  These  only 
degrade  and  weaken  it.  In  itself  alone, 
in  its  own  intrinsic  rationality  and  spiritual 
consistency  and  influence,  it  is  eternally 
strong — "sharp  and  powerful  as  any  two- 
edged  sword,  piercing  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  soul  and  spirit,  of  the  joints 
and  marrow — a  discoverer  of  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  the  heart."  It  will  never 
fail  to  vindicate  this  strength,  sooner  or 
later,  against  any  attack,  however  subtile 
or  strong,  that  may  be  directed  against  it. 
There  have  been  attacks  made  upon  it, 
and  there  may  still  be  attacks  made  upon 
it,  far  more  formidable  than  the  "Vie  de 
Jesus"  of  M.  Renan.  But  there  has  been 
seldom  any  book  which  has  put  the  issue 
between   Christianity   and   unbelief  more 


CHARACTER  OF  JESUS.  265 

plainly  than  this  one.  Whatever  be  M. 
Renan's  defects,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  has  set  forth,  in  a  singularly-direct, 
perspicuous,  and  intelligible  form,  the  great 
historical  problem  of  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity. If  he  is  wanting  in  the  gravity 
and  scientific  earnestness  of  the  German 
theologians,  he  is  also  free  from  their 
pseudo-abstractions,  and  the  vague  gener- 
alities in  which  they  so  often  lose  them- 
selves and  weary  the  world.  The  problem 
is  reduced  by  him  to  its  naked  historical 
aspects.  That  he  has  failed  in  working 
it  out  from  his  point  of  view,  notwith- 
standing all  his  resources  of  learning  and 
literary  art — failed  historically  to  render 
any  adequate,  consistent,  or  satisfactory 
account  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  and 
of  the  character  of  its  great  Founder — is 
negatively  one  of  the  strongest  testimonies 


266  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS. 

to  its  divine  origin  that  could  have  been 
given.  For  this  is  the  only  historical 
alternative  that  remains.  If  Christianity 
be  not  of  the  Jews,  of  whom  concerning 
the  flesh  Christ  came — if  it  be  not  a 
natural  product  of  Judaism — it  is  from 
God  directly  and  extraordinarily — a  living 
seed,  planted  by  the  Divine  hand,  and 
growing  up  into  all  the  fair  proportions 
of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity,  with  which 
it  has  blessed  and  beautified  the  world. 


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